Why Does My Low Back Hurt After Squats and Deadlifts?
Squats and deadlifts are two of the most valuable movements you can have in a strength-training program. They build strength, improve athletic capacity, and prepare your body to handle load.
They're also two exercises that commonly make people ask:
"Why does my low back hurt every time I squat or deadlift?"
If you've experienced this, you've probably received some version of the same advice:
"Your form must be bad."
"Your core is weak."
"You need to stretch more."
"You should probably stop deadlifting."
Sometimes technique, strength, or mobility absolutely contributes to the problem. But low back pain during lifting isn't always explained by one simple issue—and experiencing back pain doesn't automatically mean squats or deadlifts are bad for your back.
For lifters, CrossFit and HYROX athletes, recreational athletes, and active adults, the better question is:
What is making this particular movement difficult for your body to tolerate right now?
Is It Normal for Your Low Back to Be Sore After Lifting?
First, there's an important distinction between muscle soreness and pain.
Your low back muscles participate in squats and deadlifts. Just like your quads, glutes, or hamstrings, those muscles can feel fatigued or sore after training.
Normal post-workout soreness tends to:
Develop after the workout rather than suddenly during a repetition
Feel like generalized muscular soreness or fatigue
Occur after increasing weight, volume, or training intensity
Improve over the next few days
Not significantly interfere with normal movement
Pain may behave differently.
You might notice:
Sharp pain during a repetition
Pain that consistently appears at a particular point in the movement
Pain primarily on one side
Symptoms that worsen as the workout progresses
Pain that changes how you squat, hinge, walk, or move afterward
Pain that returns every time you perform the same lift
Symptoms that linger well beyond normal post-workout soreness
If you're repeatedly changing your workouts because your back doesn't tolerate squatting or deadlifting, it's worth understanding why.
Does Back Pain Mean My Form Is Bad?
Not necessarily.
Technique matters. But there isn't one universally perfect squat or deadlift that every person needs to reproduce.
People have different:
Limb lengths
Hip anatomy
Mobility
Training histories
Strength levels
Injury histories
Goals
A competitive powerlifter, HYROX athlete, CrossFit athlete, and someone strength training twice a week for general health may all squat and deadlift differently.
Rather than asking whether your form looks exactly like someone else's, it's often more useful to ask:
Is your current technique appropriate for your body, your goals, and the load you're asking it to handle?
Small changes in stance, depth, bar position, range of motion, or exercise variation can sometimes significantly change how a movement feels.
Your Back Isn't the Only Area Worth Evaluating
When someone has low back pain during a squat or deadlift, it's tempting to focus entirely on the low back.
But both movements require coordination across multiple areas of the body.
A squat requires contributions from your:
Ankles
Knees
Hips
Pelvis
Spine
Trunk musculature
A deadlift requires your body to coordinate:
Hip movement
Trunk control
Upper-back positioning
Grip
Lower-extremity strength
The ability to produce and tolerate force
A limitation somewhere in that system doesn't automatically mean another area is "out of alignment." It may simply change the strategy your body uses to complete the movement.
That's why evaluating the movement itself can be so valuable.
Sometimes It Isn't a Stretching Problem
Low back feels tight?
The natural reaction is often to stretch it.
Maybe you stretch your hamstrings. Then your hip flexors. Then your back.
You feel better temporarily, but the same tightness returns the next time you lift.
That doesn't necessarily mean you haven't stretched enough.
The sensation of tightness can sometimes reflect fatigue, load sensitivity, strength, motor control, mobility elsewhere in the body, or simply how your body is responding to your current training demands.
As we discuss in It's Not a Stretching Problem — It's a Movement Problem, mobility is only one piece of the puzzle.
Sometimes the solution isn't creating more flexibility. It's improving your body's ability to control and tolerate the range of motion you already have.
Training Load Matters More Than Many Lifters Realize
Sometimes the exercise isn't the problem.
The dose is.
Imagine that you normally deadlift 185 pounds for three sets of five.
Then your training changes. You increase your weight, add another lifting day, increase your running volume, sleep poorly for a week, and participate in a competition over the weekend.
Your deadlift technique may not have dramatically changed.
But your body's ability to recover from that training load might have.
This is why we look at questions such as:
Did you recently increase your weight?
Did your training volume change?
Are you doing more high-intensity workouts?
Did you recently return after time away?
Are you preparing for a competition?
Are you recovering between sessions?
Are you experiencing pain outside the gym too?
Pain isn't always about one "bad" repetition. Sometimes it's the accumulation of training stress over time.
The Details of When It Hurts Matter
One of the most useful things you can tell your provider is when during the lift you experience symptoms.
For example:
"My back hurts at the bottom of my squat."
That might lead us to look more closely at squat depth, ankle mobility, hip mobility, trunk control, stance, load, and what happens as you approach the bottom position.
"My back hurts when I pull the bar from the floor."
Now we may want to evaluate your starting position, hip hinge, load, bracing strategy, and whether changing the height of the starting position affects your symptoms.
"My back only hurts when the weight gets heavy."
That's useful information too.
Your body may tolerate the movement well until the demand exceeds its current capacity.
"My back hurts more the day after I lift."
Now the conversation may shift toward training volume, recovery, previous injuries, and how your symptoms behave over the following 24–48 hours.
These details tell us much more than simply knowing that you have "low back pain."
Do I Need to Stop Squatting and Deadlifting?
Not automatically.
There are situations where temporarily stopping a movement is appropriate. But many people can continue training with modifications while addressing what's contributing to their symptoms.
That might involve temporarily changing:
Weight
Volume
Range of motion
Tempo
Squat variation
Deadlift variation
Starting height
Training frequency
Maybe conventional deadlifts from the floor hurt, but elevated deadlifts don't.
Maybe back squats are uncomfortable, but goblet squats feel great.
Maybe the movement feels fine at 60% of your normal working weight but becomes painful at 90%.
Those differences are valuable information.
The goal isn't to find a way to train through significant pain. It's to identify what your body currently tolerates and progressively build capacity from there.
When Should Low Back Pain Be Evaluated?
Back pain is common, and many episodes improve over time. But that doesn't mean you have to ignore recurring symptoms.
Consider having your back evaluated if:
Pain repeatedly returns when you squat or deadlift
You're consistently avoiding certain movements because of your back
Symptoms are becoming more frequent
Your normal range of motion has changed
Pain is affecting your ability to train
Pain is interfering with normal daily activities
You've tried reasonable training modifications without improvement
As we discuss in When to Seek Help for Back Pain, certain symptoms deserve more immediate medical attention.
Seek prompt medical evaluation for significant trauma, progressive weakness, loss of bowel or bladder control, numbness in the groin or saddle region, fever or unexplained illness associated with back pain, or other new or concerning neurological symptoms.
What Does a Movement-Based Back Evaluation Look At?
At Pillar Health Co., we don't want to simply know that your back hurts.
We want to understand what your back is having difficulty doing.
For someone experiencing pain with squats or deadlifts, an evaluation may include:
Lumbar spine movement
Hip mobility
Ankle mobility
Trunk strength and control
Hip hinge mechanics
Squat mechanics
Strength
Previous injury history
Current training volume
The specific variation or position that produces symptoms
When possible, seeing the actual movement that causes your symptoms can be extremely useful.
Treatment can then be based on what the evaluation identifies rather than using the same approach for every person with back pain.
That may include chiropractic care, manual therapy, soft-tissue techniques, mobility work, strengthening, rehabilitation exercises, movement modifications, and a progressive return to heavier loading.
Our Chiropractic Care & Sports Rehabilitation approach is designed to help active people address pain while continuing to build the strength and capacity needed for the activities they care about.
What If I've Already Tried Treating My Back Pain?
If you've already tried stretching, massage, adjustments, rest, or exercise and the pain keeps returning, that doesn't necessarily mean your back is destined to hurt every time you lift.
It may mean the problem deserves another look.
In When Pain Persists Despite Treatment: What's Next?, we discuss why persistent symptoms sometimes require reassessing the diagnosis, movement demands, treatment strategy, or whether additional evaluation is appropriate.
The goal shouldn't be endless treatment.
The goal should be understanding what is limiting you, addressing what can be changed, and helping you build the capacity to return to the activities you want to do.
Your Goal Doesn't Have to Be "Never Deadlift Again"
If squats and deadlifts are important parts of your training, the goal of care shouldn't automatically be removing them forever.
Your goal might be getting back under a barbell confidently.
It might be preparing for your next HYROX event.
It might be returning to CrossFit without scaling every workout because of your back.
Or it might simply be strength training consistently without wondering whether today's workout is going to leave your back irritated for the next three days.
If low back pain keeps showing up when you squat or deadlift, a movement-based evaluation can help identify what may be contributing to it and determine how to keep you moving forward.
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