knees and squats with or without Smith machine
 

Hi,

Last night I tried to do squats on the Smith machine. Before, I had an exercise of bending down and moving a weighted plate. I couldn't bend down far enough for the squat and my knees really hurt. I was in total shock because I could do them with no knee problems several years ago. I really hope I didn't mess up my knees due to the weight. It makes me really sad.

Does deadlifts make anyone elses back hurt? Are there alternatives?

I am really upset. I want to do squats with weights.:?: Frustrating. I'll try it on a different day to see if I have the same thing happen. Another consequence of carrying too much weight on my frame. Geez.

I think you might want to check your form. Deadlifts do work the lower back, but they shouldn't hurt your lower back. I do deadlifts with a weighted bar and I do back squats with a weighted bar, and if my form is on-point, my back definitely doesn't hurt. If you can't see yourself in a mirror while you're doing it, try having a trainer at the gym check your form for you while you do it.

If you find that your knees bother you too much, you can try building up the muscles around the knee by doing other forms of squats. I do a wall squat using a stability ball at my back and a ball that I squeeze between my knees. I also do the leg press, which works the quads nicely. Yeah, it's not the same thing, but it can help you build up to doing weighted squats again.

My back is sometimes muscle sore after deadlifting - but that is appropriate as those are the muscles being worked with the exercise (along with your butt & hamstrings).

For your squats try using a bar & the squat box instead of the smith machine. The smith machine creates an unnatural range of motion & can really mess up form. Only go as deep as you can before you feel pain & as you get stronger you should be able to improve your range of motion.

I would definitely recommend having a personal trainer look at your form on both these exercises.