Why your lower back hurts after deadlifts but not squats

The bar starts in a different place

In a squat, the bar sits on your back and travels up and down over your mid-foot. Your torso stays fairly upright the whole time, especially if you're doing a goblet squat or front-loaded variation. Your lower back mostly just holds position.

In a deadlift, the bar starts on the floor, which means your hips are further back and your torso is more bent forward at the start. That's a much longer lever arm for your lower back to control, especially in the first few inches off the ground. More forward lean, more demand on the spine to stay rigid while everything else moves.

Rounding shows up more in a hinge

Squats are forgiving of small back position changes because you're moving mostly straight up and down. Deadlifts punish rounding because you're pulling a heavy weight away from your body through a hip hinge, and any give in your lower back gets loaded directly.

If your hips shoot up first when you pull, or your lower back rounds before the bar leaves the floor, that's usually where the soreness comes from. It's not that deadlifts are dangerous, it's that they're less forgiving of a technical breakdown.

Weak hips and hamstrings make your back do the work

A hinge pattern is supposed to be driven by your glutes and hamstrings, with your lower back staying braced rather than doing the lifting itself. If those muscles aren't strong or you're not used to the pattern, your back picks up slack it shouldn't.

This is really common in guys who squat a lot but rarely hinge. The squat pattern is already grooved, the hinge isn't, so the first hard deadlift session exposes it fast.

• Try single-leg work to build hip control without much load: /exercises/single-leg-hip-hinge
• Build hamstring strength that supports the hinge: /exercises/nordic-curl-negative
• Groin the hip hinge pattern lighter before adding weight, using a dumbbell or kettlebell first

What to actually do about it

First, check your setup. Bar close to your shins, hips not too low, chest up before you pull, and brace your core like someone's about to poke you in the stomach. A lot of back soreness disappears once the starting position is fixed.

Second, back off the weight and rebuild the pattern. Romanian deadlifts and good mornings let you feel the hinge without pulling from the floor, which is the hardest part to control. Once that feels solid, working back up to conventional deadlifts usually goes smoother.

If the soreness is a dull, tired ache the day after, that's normal training stress. If it's sharp, radiates down a leg, or lingers well past a few days, that's worth getting checked out by a professional rather than pushing through.

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