Reoccurring lower back injury, mad as hell

So back in Feb. I hurt my back in the gym in the middle of a deadlift. Felt a sudden muscle pop on the left side in the lumbar area. 3 weeks of rice and everything is feeling good and I get back into the routine. Starting easy and slowly building back.

In April, I feel a muscle twinge in a workout, same area but the right side. Makes sense, was going a little harder than I had been and the stronger side was compensating. 1 week of rice and I'm back at it. Started going to my chiropractor for some massage therapy which helped.

Come early July, everything has been feeling good and I'm feeling stronger than I have all year, and my lower back completely locks up in a workout. Was doing deadlifts again, and I don't think I was doing anything wrong with my lift mechanics, coach didn't see anything wrong either. Worst it has been. Doc sees me and says severe muscle strain, rx's some heavy pain meds and relaxers, and refers me to PT. PT doc gives me some stretches and light movements to try to get my back unstuck. 4 days later on the couch, I twist to stretch and pop my lower back. Biggest and deepest pops I've ever felt, and instant and complete pain relief. Follow up with PT doc and he's blown away with the change.

This Thursday at the gym had a normal workout with a decent amount of back work. I went very light on the weight because of this, light enough that the coach noticed and told me that it looks light. Pretty much code for everything looks great and you can/should do more. Felt fine the rest of the day.

Woke up Friday morning with a sore back. Bad sore. Started the PT stretches again. Saturday was worse, started taking 800mg ibuprofen to get through a light day. Today I'm laid out and back on the heavy shit from July just so I can hobble around the house.

I don't know if I even have a question here. I think I'm probably rushing my recovery but I can't stand to sit still for 3 months when everything feels perfectly fine after 3 weeks. I'm so damn frustrated with a trick back and just trying to keep my chin up. Anyone else out there have something like this? Any advice on how to recover?

Yeah, quit doing dead lifts.

Your last paragraph pretty much answers your question. You've rushed recovery multiple times now.
Your obviously young, but if you are already having back problems, it's not going to get better as you age, especially if you continue lifting heavy weight.

Is there a Bikram Yoga place near you ? I swear by yoga, I am someone who should have blown out my back long ago from weight lifting, bike & ski crashes, and manual labor, but thanks to regular yoga my back is super flexible.

I've had major back problems since I was in my early 20s

Ive been down a lot of different paths in recovery periods and trying to maintain.

The best things for me are...

lifting moderately with perfect form to keep low back and core strong. Squats with form and moderate weights are good. Deadlift definitely riskier. If you do deads just go to the knee...all the way down is really tough on back even with good form...which is very tough to maintain when weight gets heavy

limiting the things that got me here (skiing and hockey). A couple times a week is my limit. Anything more and muscle fatigue will take over and bring the pain

Massage and chiropractic when I'm really fucked up. Massage is obviously always good, but when I'm in pain this is the best short term remedy. Chiro gets you heading down the right path quicker, and then you have to maintain to keep things there

Also, bang lots of hole and crush beers. It seems to work for me





Sent from the other side

Similar to booner, I've had back problems since I was about 23 due to a compression fracture and herniated disc.

Best things for me are constant stretching of my back, hips and hamstrings. Search YouTube for Limber 11 to find an awesome program for that, along with a constant emphasis on core strength. Lots of planks, yoga and swimming for me.

All of that mitigates the big blowouts I tend to get when I get lazy, and let me ski, bike, climb and work an office job with just moderate daily pain.

I've had to cut out certain things like running and deadlifting but hopefully it won't come to that for you.

FWIW I haven't had great success with chiro work, but others do.

My chiro always tells me if your back muscles go out it's because your spine is out of alignment, and the muscles are compensating and just waiting to go out. Could happen while you are deadlifting or while you are unloading the dishwasher.

He practices the Blair Technique, which works for me. Focuses on the upper cervical (neck), which is where all lower back problems stem from supposedly, even though you wouldn't think so. Works wonders for me but everybody has to find their own solutions to back pain...

I've had ongoing back issues for 5-6 years now. Due to lifting heavy things at odd angles, bad mechanics, etc. Deadlift session sent it into chronic pain mode. I'll get it feeling good and then bam! right back to pain town.

For awhile I tried the rest, wait and then try to make gains path. Now, I don't give a shit about gains or setting a PR. I want to be able to ski, hike, bike 30 years from now.

Sitting around is not good for me. I have to stay active or my back just gets worse. Finding a good stretching program has worked wonders.

I assume you have no pain going down your legs, numbness, muscle weakness.
You are obviously pushing recovery way too fast. Your coach is not the person you should be listening to. Unless the lifting is somehow necessary for your livelihood--are you are professional athlete--you need to tone it done permanently.

We tend to define ourselves by what we do, what we accomplish. You need to find yourself a better way to define yourself.
Some of what you have described are locked facets. I've had that a half dozen times. Mostly they got better on their own. Once by hanging from my arms with my back hyperextended. Once I locked up when I twisted to look at the stool I was about to sit on. Walked around bent over for a week. Then one day I was in an operating room waiting for a preemie to be anesthetized. The anesthesiologist put the breathing tube down the esophagus. Took him too long to realize it--kid's heart rate was down to 30 before he got the trachea intubated. When it was all over I realized my back was fine. (Kid was fine too.)

Now I have spinal stenosis, with disc protrusion, ligament hypertrophy, facet arthritis. Can't lift 25 pounds without pain, can't backpack, have to take it easy skiing. Can't run. I lifted too much for too many years (backpacked with 120# once) and now I'm paying the price.

Who's your coach? Seems like they are not doing you any favors. Kelly Starrett is in your area and while you probably can't get in to see him I'm sure he would have a recommendation of who to see. Frankly once you hurt your lower back in a traditional DL I would think you should go months before performing DLs again. Does your gym have a trap bar? While you shouldn't be doing trap bar DLs either for quite some time, when you do get back to them they are a safer alternative. However in the meantime, there is a lot of core work you need to be doing. You should be working on everything from your lats to glutes front and back. Heavy focus on anti rotational strength and stability.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I assume you have no pain going down your legs, numbness, muscle weakness.

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I've got this, it's not fun. Sitting in a truck hurts, standing hurts, laying down hurts, sitting at a desk hurts....I run the heated seats in my car in the middle of summer to get some relief.



You do not want to go this route, trust me.

My doc gave me the talk old goat gives above, although shorter.

Heed the warnings given here. My last deadlift - August 1993. A clear snap/pop.

You want to be sure? Get an mri. If not, then treat it as a permanent injury. It probably is. The pt is lots of core from every direction daily. Power station work up the yang and hyper-extension work with weight (once the pain is gone). Hack squats are okay and be cautious on leg machines. Be sure of good posture when doing shrugs, shoulder presses or standing curls. Be squarely weighted on your hips and not making pressure on the spine.
I have a plyometric deadlift simulation if you need it.

Stretch, stretch and then stretch. Do yoga if you can't be religious with it on your own.

Keep your quads and your hamstrings in particular, well stretched and balanced. This will keep your hips level and aid in keeping your back aligned. The more you stretch the more limber you become and the easier it is for the chiropractor to be effective and much longer times between visits. You will stretch enough at some point to enable you to give yourself an adjustment.

The answer is to strengthen and extend the endurance of everything around the injury. The over-flow of the work around the spot will be indirect training to the effected area. If the injury is permanent damage, this will always be the way you work around it. Try never to affect the injured area directly, unless stretching of course.

The more you adhere to this regiment the less frequent your back will go out.

I seriously doubt that YMMV

edited to add: those spiders going down your legs indicate an impinged nerve -stretch-

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Originally Posted by old goat

Now I have spinal stenosis, with disc protrusion, ligament hypertrophy, facet arthritis. Can't lift 25 pounds without pain, can't backpack, have to take it easy skiing. Can't run. I lifted too much for too many years (backpacked with 120# once) and now I'm paying the price.

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OG, so why haven't you considered surgery yet?

I don't know why it is you keep needing to do dead lifts, but agree with KenJongIll, stop doing them. I wouldn't recommend surgery YET as the pain is going away. Do yoga, chiropractor, acupuncture, whatever you like that helps. Once the pain is under control, go running. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it will strengthen all of those little stabilizer muscles in your lower back and keep the pain from returning.

If the pain does not go away or you start or get worse sciatic pain, go see a doctor and get an MRI so you can see what is really going on. Full disclosure, I had reoccurring lower back pain after a snowboarding accident and did eventually get decompression surgery. It gave me my life back. Even still, think of that as a last resort.

Thanks for the stories and warnings guys. I'm no pro athlete, just want to be able to ski well, hike, mountain bike, etc. and not be a fat shitty american while doing it and set a good example for my kids that getting outside and doing stuff is awesome. I've tried a lot of other forms of exercise: cycling, spinning, martial arts, normal gym machines, swimming, running, and it seems that crossfit and I click on some level. I'm not in it to be a bro-brah musclehead and max out PR's and whatnot, I just want to be in good shape. Crossfit combines enough stuff to keep it interesting and challenging for me.

Coaches at the gym aren't my enemy, they aren't pushing me to do anything I can't/shouldn't (and they've even pulled me aside to ask if I was ok with the motion, or to tell me to throttle back), I push myself enough as is. I'm going to crossfit davis, and there's a couple coaches during the week because nobody really likes the 5:45 am shift, so they rotate between 3 of them. I'm not doing anything that the rest of the class isn't doing on some crazy ass comp program.

No pain down the leg, numbness, weakness, etc, just inflamed muscle on the right side of the lumbar as far as I can tell right now. Feeling a lot better tonight after some rest and some time in the pool unweighted. I know that waiting for healing to happen is the right answer, and I'm not a patient person. I've given myself plenty of back trouble all through school playing tuba in the marching band. 45 lbs on one shoulder for hours at a time leads to issues, but that stopped 12 years ago. I know that I don't want to end up as an old wreck because I went too hard too early, I just don't want to end up the guy who gave up on exercise to save his body. I know I'm on that path and I'm looking for a happy medium, and a way to stay sane while waiting to heal proper.

edit: and for the record, my February dead lift injury was a heavy one and I know my form wasn't perfect on it. July was under 95# deadlift with several rounds of multiple reps, happened near the end. April was doing a clean, and last Thursday I have no idea, I felt fine the entire day afterward. Workout was clean & jerk (where I was going light enough and looking solid enough for the coach to say I could add more weight, I declined citing I was protecting my back) rowing, pushups and pullups.

FWIW - I go to cross fit, do modified movements/lifts and my back is better than sitting around. My experience is that laying around "resting" for to long just makes it worse.

All good advice above. Just to add, one thing that really helps me when my back is bad is walking. Seems to lengthen and loosen the muscles in the lower back and allow them to get back in better alignment. Yoga is great and the ladies are HOT

+1 for yoga. Adding some form of active stretching to the xfit routine (such as yoga) will be super beneficial. It will help to stretch back muscles and build core strength, which is also good for the back.

Yoga for most back issues is a bad idea in my opinion. It promotes additional ROM in the lumbar area, but what you need is stability in the lumbar. More range of motion in the wrong area will make it worse. After you tear or strain something, stretching is rarely the answer to prevent additional damage. The stretching is to get you mobile again.

Perhaps your hips and / or thoracic spine are too stiff / immobile and as a result you used poor form, however you need a good PT who works with lifters and athletes to figure that out.

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Originally Posted by cat in january

Yoga is great and the ladies are OLD

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...at least at our community center

Changes venues. What yoga did for me was made me aware of how my body worked and definitely improved my bodies alignment. Core strength, core strength when you are ready.

Stop going to the gym, fag.
Also, go see a Rolfer/Structural Integrationist.
https://www.rolfguild.org/practition...0950253075f79/
Ok, I'm biased because my mom is one, and I've had a lot of alternative stuff done like acupuncture and whatnot (also something you might wanna check out). I've had 2 sessions with a gal in town here in Missoula and I'm already breathing better. My thoracic spine is trying to collapse into the back of my chest. Went for a long steep ride yesterday and having been biking much. Thought it would be torture and I barely had to stop and take breaks where I normally do. And I topped it off by moving all kinds of storm detritus off the trail. This big ass downed tree had been cut up, but not yet removed somehow.
Anyway, it's good shit. It's real. It works. Students at the Guild go through pretty extensive anatomy studies and hands on workshops.
Yoga sounds like fucking torture and chiropractory is snake oil at best.
You're not in the East Bay, are you?

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Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

Stop going to the gym, fag.

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Seriously, how old are you? Maybe it's time to retire the use of that word. You'd probably have more luck finding friends. And FWIW, I know plenty of gay dudes and chicks in this town who would wreck the fuck out of you on a bike or on skis. Grow the fuck up.

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Originally Posted by DJSapp

Thanks for the stories and warnings guys. I'm no pro athlete, just want to be able to ski well, hike, mountain bike, etc. and not be a fat shitty american while doing it and set a good example for my kids that getting outside and doing stuff is awesome. I've tried a lot of other forms of exercise: cycling, spinning, martial arts, normal gym machines, swimming, running, and it seems that crossfit and I click on some level. I'm not in it to be a bro-brah musclehead and max out PR's and whatnot, I just want to be in good shape. Crossfit combines enough stuff to keep it interesting and challenging for me.

Coaches at the gym aren't my enemy, they aren't pushing me to do anything I can't/shouldn't (and they've even pulled me aside to ask if I was ok with the motion, or to tell me to throttle back), I push myself enough as is. I'm going to crossfit davis, and there's a couple coaches during the week because nobody really likes the 5:45 am shift, so they rotate between 3 of them. I'm not doing anything that the rest of the class isn't doing on some crazy ass comp program.

No pain down the leg, numbness, weakness, etc, just inflamed muscle on the right side of the lumbar as far as I can tell right now. Feeling a lot better tonight after some rest and some time in the pool unweighted. I know that waiting for healing to happen is the right answer, and I'm not a patient person. I've given myself plenty of back trouble all through school playing tuba in the marching band. 45 lbs on one shoulder for hours at a time leads to issues, but that stopped 12 years ago. I know that I don't want to end up as an old wreck because I went too hard too early, I just don't want to end up the guy who gave up on exercise to save his body. I know I'm on that path and I'm looking for a happy medium, and a way to stay sane while waiting to heal proper.

edit: and for the record, my February dead lift injury was a heavy one and I know my form wasn't perfect on it. July was under 95# deadlift with several rounds of multiple reps, happened near the end. April was doing a clean, and last Thursday I have no idea, I felt fine the entire day afterward. Workout was clean & jerk (where I was going light enough and looking solid enough for the coach to say I could add more weight, I declined citing I was protecting my back) rowing, pushups and pullups.

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Crossfit is known for producing injuries.
Look into their record in Santa Cruz

It's frustrating but let yourself heal enough to do the simple stretching and core strength exercises. Then do those for the rest of your life. And don't be a hero in the gym. Be methodical and thoughtful about your goals. (I've fallen off several times and always have to re-up my efforts to do the core work and stretching--I'm going through one of those periods now)

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Originally Posted by RootSkier

Seriously, how old are you? Maybe it's time to retire the use of that word. You'd probably have more luck finding friends. And FWIW, I know plenty of gay dudes and chicks in this town who would wreck the fuck out of you on a bike or on skis. Grow the fuck up.

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I'm the last generation that gets to call people fag. Btw,it has nothing to do with who you like. Maybe I was calling him a British cigarette. Maybe you should take your holier-than-thou self-righteous smuggness and go fuck yourself with it. K? Kthnxbai.