Originally Posted by
cwd
My risk of an acute low-back injury is greater with HB.
When I'm near failure, my hips drift back to pass more work from my quads to my ass. My ass is stronger and this will sometimes let me grind out the squat.
This is fairly safe in LB, I was already bent over close to the best balance between quads & ass. And the bar will stay put.
But in a HB squat, when the hips move back, the stress to the low back skyrockets.
Moment arm on the back is longer, and HB squats haven't strengthened my low back as well as LB would have.
If my back angle gets bent enough, the bar will roll forwards onto my neck.
There's a risk of folding up like a taco, and hurting my neck or low back in the process.
Probably this is why Oly lifters are trained to stay upright no matter what and to dump the bar behind themselves on failure.
But I'm not trained to do that, and don't have bumper plates.
I always fail a squat forwards onto the safeties.
This is safer low-bar.