We’ve all had those off days. You look at your workout routine and barbell back squats are on the menu. Normally you can’t get enough of leg day, but on this particular workout day, you’re feeling a tweak your shoulder or knee after the previous night’s pick-up basketball game; now back squats have become more daunting than usual, leaving you scrambling to find a strength move to swap with squats that will still hit all the right muscles without worsening your minor aches.
If your knee hurts, getting in the right frame of mind to squat is difficult. You’ll be thinking about it, and it may throw you off. Sometimes this can be solved with box squats, and sometimes not. But when your shoulder is sore, this makes putting a barbell on your back difficult. Your shoulder needs some external rotation and mobility to put a barbell there.
And if any of those is lacking, getting a barbell comfortably on your back will be a problem. Yes, you can fight through it if you wish, but why when there are squat swap outs that allow you to go hard and heavy without pain? Instead of training in pain (of course if it’s an injury, get it checked out with a physician), work around it with these four squat swap outs and live to squat another day again.
4 Squat Swap Outs so You Never Need to Skip Leg Day
These four exercises will train the squat movement hard and heavily without discomforting your shoulders, knees, or lower back.
