When I squat my low back feels stiff, what can I do?

If you experience tightness in your back when you squat you need to perform a more thorough warm up to prepare your body for squatting. Start with foam rolling all the normally tight during squatting such as your low back, hips, and upper thighs and glutes. Perform stretches to stretch the low back and hamstrings. Follow this with a dynamic warm up to help mobilize your low back and prepare it for squatting. Movements like prisoner squats and rotational lunges will help activate and mobilize your low back. To perform prisoner squats stand with a shoulder width stance, feet facing forward shins in line with your second and third toe hands gently laced behind your head. Keep your spine in neutral alignment and engage your core, squat down to chair height and stand back up, perform 15-20 repetitions to help mobilize your low back hamstrings and knees. To perform a rotational lunge stand in a split stance with one leg forward and one leg back dips down until both your front leg and back leg are bent to approximately 90 degrees. Keep your torso upright with your core engage and arms stretched out in front of you. While holding the position rotate your torso to the left and then to the right, repeat with the opposite leg forward, perform 8-10 repetitions per side. This dynamic warm up will help mobilize your core and low back and better prepare your body to perform squats.