During a March 2025 training session, former Women’s Physique Olympia champ Dana Linn Bailey (DLB) programmed a quad-focused leg workout for those with back pain. These alternatives are intended to minimize spine loading and maximize leg tension:
DLB’s Quad-Biased Workout
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Workouts for Back Safety
Depending on the severity of back pain, resistance training can help. Lifting can strengthen a weak core, a common cause of lower back pain. However, it can exacerbate other, more serious conditions, which should be addressed with the help of a qualified professional.
Bailey focused on exercises that reduce back pressure or avoid spinal loading. Use manageable weights, pay attention to your body’s response to an exercise, and adjust if needed.
- Belt Squat
- Belt squats are hip-loaded, minimizing spinal pressure.
- Leg Extensions & Sissy Squats
- Bailey combined machine quad extensions and bodyweight sissy squats — knee-dominant exercises. When performed correctly, there’s minimal lower back stress, provided you avoid excessive hyperextension.
For extensions…10 to 12 reps, then bodyweight squats until I’m about to fall over.
—Dana Linn Bailey
- Leg Press
- Leg presses offer the heaviest loading potential of any leg exercise while supporting the back and unloading the spine. They’re effective enough that six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates replaced squats with leg presses during his peak.
- Bulgarian Split Squats
- Bulgarian split squats are a great muscle-building and functional exercise that can be performed nearly anywhere. Bailey performs weighted sets holding kettlebells followed by partial bodyweight reps for constant tension.
Additional back-friendly exercises to train legs include step-ups, lunges, glute bridges, sled pushes/drags, and hamstring curls.
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Featured image: @danalinnbailey on Instagram
