Did the doctor who forbade you of ever doing squats or deads happen to lift weights at all? This kind of diagnosis by doctors is so common and it seems in over 90% of the cases it is dead wrong!
I am sure that Bill will want to add more to this discussion, being a phsyical therapist, but I will share what I know with you. Often-times squats are the VERY exercise you need to strenthen your back (and the muscles of your "core") and possibly even your knee. I doubt your back was hurt by doing squats in the first place (unless you were just doing them wrong)... Your back and knees were hurt by lots of impact, and then by years of non-use, letting all those support muscles in your body weaken.
That being said, I have seen more people re-injure their backs on a leg extension than on a squat. Leg extensions and curls may be okay as supplemental exercises (although I never do them personally), but they shouldn't be the base of a routine. I will argue that, properly learned and executed, squats or deads would be the very exercises I would use to get your leg/back strength back up.
__________________
Jean-Paul Francoeur
www.jpfitness.com
http://forums.jpfitness.com
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain
|