squat bar kills shoulders and back

[guest]

Alright... this may sound dumb. But I can't really do squats because the bar hurts my back and neck too much. Even only with 115 lbs on it I can hardly get through a set cause it bruises my back. I tried holding it lower too but it put too much stress on my arms to hold it up instead of my back and I almost dropped it... haha. I don't think the place I go to has a bar either.

[guest]

In the last line I meant it doesn't have a pad

[Scorcher2005]

Your supposed to set it across the traps. When i first started i messed up a few times and set it above the traps on the spine and it swelled and hurt the next couple of days. If you still can't seem to figure it out, deal with the arm stress.

[Kane]

You can do a few things:

-try and rest the bar on muscle (if you cant do that, its ok because in time you will be able to)

-bring a towel in with you and wrap that around the bar

-try pushing up on the bar with your arms to relieve some of the pressure (this will fatigue your arms so be careful)

[Johan]

Place on traps as much as possible, or you can go to prowriststraps.com and get yourself a pad or manta ray

[hrdgain81]

If the bar with only 115lbs on it is brusing your back, you might be enemic ... you might want to have that checked out.