If you only *think* your form is good, it probably isn't.

Doing set 3 was stupid.


!!! STOP !!!


Okay....here's my rule of thumb. You won't like it. It generally takes twice as long to recover from an injury as you spend injuring it and re-injuring it. So, you've spent the last 3 weeks NOT caring for your back, and continuing to reinjure it. Expect 6 weeks (more or less) to be back to normal.

Second rule. Don't screw around with load bearing joints and muscles (basically everything from your belly-button down. You can't just stop using them until they heal, which just makes it take longer. AS SOON AS you feel something, for the love of all things holy STOP!!! Don't ride the 20miles home, don't finish the last 5k of a run, don't do just one more set of weights.

Third rule. Never train with pain masking drugs (anti-inflammatory, Tylenol, etc). If you can't train without it, don't train with it. I'm not saying not to take these...just don't train if you need them.

(((NOTE: I am not a doctor. This is NOT medical advice. Just my long time experiences with similar injuries, and lessons learned from doing it wrong. )))

How to recover?

1. A week of NO TRAINING. No planks, no stretches, no SBR. Just stop.
2. But, bed rest is bad, too. Light, slow (2mph?....NOT A BRISK WALK), frequent walking is your friend. Start with maybe 10 minutes every hour or two. for pace, think....following your wife through the department stores. Gentle.
3. Alternating ice, then heat can often help ease the muscle spasms and pain. The ice freezes the spasms, the heat loosens things up. Ice first, heat last.
4. Try to keep your back straight. Sitting is usually bad. Standing or laying down is better. But, I always find walking better than standing still. When I lay down, I put a couple of pillows under my knees. Just enough to relay the lower spine.
5. Take Tylenol and/or ibuprofen/aleve for pain. Reducing the pain, reduces the spasms and tension, which allows things to heal faster.

If you aren't pain free after a week, continue above until you are. It may take more than one given how long you've let it fester and re-injured it.

Once you are ready to return to training. Start with the bike---ON THE TRAINER. Its the easiest on the lower back muscles. Just an easy 10-20 minutes. Think recovery spin. Do this for a few days, increasing the time by 5 minutes or so as tolerable. If that goes well. Try a short ride outside. if that goes well, add a short recovery swim. Again, progress over a few days as tolerable. if all that is going well...add in a short recovery jog. Extend as tolerable over a few days. See the pattern?

Assuming you are still pain free, at this point, you can begin to resume "training" at maybe 50% load...increasing by 10-20% per week.

Once you are back to full SBR (still no weights), you should consider a core mobility/stability development program.

Best case the above is probably 4 weeks. But, if you catch these things early, and don't push through the above can often be abbreviated into a week or so.

Before you return to weights (after several weeks of normal training with no pain), I'd suggest getting a session with a trainer to review your form and ensure that everything is PERFECT. Squats need to be PERFECT, not just mostly ok.

thanks so much, Tom. Sounds spot on - luckily there have been no spasms, just a pain, usually just a soreness, on either side of my lower backbone and not the spine itself.

I get the part about nothing for a week except the slow walking. I can do some icing and heating but opportunities are erratic.

At some point would it be wise to also work on Swiss ball training (lying on my back, lower legs up on the ball. https://chekinstitute.com/...ball-training-1-dvd/)?

Great tip about using a trainer to check on form. As a rule, should I drop the back squats and move to a goblet squat (when the time comes, not before June)?

What does SBR stand for?

I like the advice to cycle on a trainer - I need to buy one anyway.

Thank again, Allan

SBR = Swim Bike Run

Spasms don't have to be like a Charlie horse, or other immediate cramping type of thing. Typically, when you injure your back, the muscles tense up to try and hold things still. This tension leads to more pain, fatigue, etc. The ice/heat helps to numb the "pain", and then the heat loosens the muscles. Walking after that encourages the muscles in your back to tense/loosen in sequence like they are supposed to do.

I find the ice/heat to be most needed in the evenings. So, when I get home. When its been really bad, I've closed my door at work and iced/heat during lunch.

Yes, swissball is excellent for stability training...all kinds of exercices to do with that thing. Just get well first---at least past the acute phase. Remember, when doing this type of stuff to aid in return to sport...NEVER cause more pain. If it hurts don't do it, do less of it, etc. Build without pain, always.

I wouldn't do squats at all. I'd trade them for lunges, stair steps, etc. Bodyweight only for me...although I will do stair steps with a weight vest. I think the risk/reward curve for weighted squats is just all wrong. But, that's something that you could discuss with a trainer.

After about 6 months of consistent core stability/mobility training I haven't had any recurrences of back issues like I used to get several years ago. It takes a while to break the cycle, though.

Do you normally do flip turns when you swim??? Flip turns are great for keeping the back loosened up.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'm 38 and been fighting on/off low back pain for a couple years. I've tried a few things that didn't provide lasting results. I just started following this 12 minute routine every day and my back feels great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI

Good luck! Back pain sucks

Try lying on the floor in a large open area and extend your arms straight above your head parallel to the floor. Then roll across the floor 2 or 3 rotations one way and then back the other way - think like a sausage rolling across the floor. Do 4 or 5 repetitions twice a day.
This generally works for me if I have strained my back from too much lifting etc.

I don't know how old Tom_hampton is, and I'm not saying his advice is not worth following. But for me (age 62), it's too extreme in terms of how far to back off.

I have had back issues for maybe even a couple decades. Would occasionally get to the point where getting up from or sitting down in a chair made me wince, a lot. Lost some weight, now 5'11" & 170 lbs, and also took up strength training in addition to SBR. Used the 5 x 5 protocol, which emphasizes lifting heavy 3 x week. I now do back squats at 225 - 235, deadlift 245. DON'T TAKE THIS AS SOME SORT OF CHALLENGE. This took a couple years to get to.

For the last 5 years or so, it works for me like this: I will still sometimes get lower back pain. Nothing as bad as years ago, which I attribute to the fact that my back muscles are overall much stronger. If I wake up aware of my back on a lifting day, I take 2 Ibuprofen in the morning and 2 an hour or so before lifting. That usually does it and I can lift normally. If still some pain in the gym, I'll try a weightlifting belt and not going quite as deep; if it doesn't help, then I stop. I work my way up 145, 185, 225, so I feel my way up. Not unusual to cut back on squat or deadlift once a week (1 out of 3 workouts). Better to be consistent, avoid overloading and get in what you can consistently.

I might feel my back some starting a run or ride, but usually the movement helps release or whatever. It's very rare that any pain from lifting prevents me from doing a run or ride the following day, like maybe twice a year or so.

So TL;DR - FOR ME, I can experience a low/moderate level of pain, but it's treatable with Ibuprofen + backing off when appropriate, and I can keep a fairly consistent level of training. And at this age, in my opinion consistency trumps everything else.

If you're getting pain to the point that you're non-functional, then yeah, you need to consider more drastic recovery protocols. But I know from my experience, at this age getting back really sucks, and maybe backing off 10# after 3 weeks of no lifting is not enough. I also know that strenuous motions that are not really close to lifting movements can really destroy me. Moving furniture is one of those.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

I'm 50. Fwiw.

I agree with you, if you catch it early like you describe... And said as much. But, he's let it drag on for 3 weeks, continuing to try and work out, and continuing to reinjure it.

In my experience, it takes 2x as long to fully recover from back/hip/knee/ankle/foot muscle or tendon strain as it is allowed to fester and get reinjured.

That ratio may very well be different for different people. 2x is mine. Maybe it's 1x for you... Maybe it's 3x for him. No clue.

I will say this.... I NEVER train with pain suppressing drugs... Period. If I can't train drug free... I don't train. That goes for any joint or muscle or tendon involved in sport and at risk of overuse.

I have before... 20 years ago. I learned that was a way to just make those injuries worse until the ibuprofen wasn't strong enough to mask the pain. At that point I had months of rehab to return to sport. Btdt.

SBR, I agree. Strength training, maybe I've just been lucky, but when I need it, Ibuprofen lets me get deeper movement or higher weight or both; and so far I've never had anything carry over to the following day. But again, if it still hurts with Ibuprofen, I back off. And generally there are other lifts that are unaffected, so I do those. Consistency.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

Tom-I've taken your advices to heart and I have avoided training for one week now. During that week, I had a terrible cold for 4+ days and with it a terrible increase in back pain. I've never had back pain with a cold but it seems that the illness amplified what previously was a minor into a major pain - felt in the exact same area. Would seem to indicate that even when one doesn't notice much pain, the tissue may still need more healing before it is close enough to normal to resume training.

Now that the cold has ended and with it the severe version of my pain, I am ready for a week of easy back strengthening exercises and will begin easy spin cycling in 3 or 4 days.

I've decided there is one bright spot in this pitiful story - you are right about the gain/risk ratio for barbell squats given my particulars and this has forced me to consider options other than weights to supplement my Tri training. The point being that there are a variety of supplemental exercise approaches for the senior tri athlete and it is time for me to try out the Swiss ball suite of exercises. In my sixties perhaps athletic stability is more important than power and now I have a slot to pursue it.

You also convinced me that all these more complex exercises need at least periodic real-time coaching. The local trainer I use may not be a Swiss ball specialist but his general exercise knowledge set seems to include Swiss ball. Watching youtube videos is not sufficient for me to do these exercises well.

Another challenge for me is limiting physical exertions at work - on some days it may be impossible to avoid repeated climbing of sets of stairs and lifting a few 20# boxes. Those things add up and lead to fatigue by the end of the day.

For those of you prone to denial like me, I think the real culprit stems from being lashed to a schedule. Schedules make me want to complete a certain stage of my training by a certain date and thus disregard messages from my body like "slow down" or "stop". Treat schedules like war plans - when hell is about to break loose forget about the plan and open you eyes for the pending disaster!

Thank you again, Allan

Glad you are feeling better.

Which part of your back is it?

My back pain was very low in the lumbar region. Essential at my waistline and very deep. Doctor figured out that it wasn’t actually my back but was my psoas (hip flexor) muscle.

It has been seven years with only a few flare ups. Things I avoid are reaching to lift and prolonged sitting.

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Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour

Sorry to hear about the cold... And that it seems to have made your back worse. Did you spend any length of time in bed? I only ask because that makes both my and my wife's back worse rather than better.

Anyway, hope things get better soon.

thanks to all and especially Tom. The tips on walking have helped the most and learning to sleep on my left side has made for better mornings. I stopped running all together and cycle only easily and only on a stationary bike (until tomorrow). I am still learning how slow this process can be - and I seem to have weird complications: if I swim a bit too much or a bit too fast (and I am NOT doing much of either), although it feels fine at the time, the back soreness worsens the next day but has migrated from the lower back to the upper back! I assume this is because the ad hoc muscle recruitment to perform the demanded task is awkward and harmful. I think "out-of-whack" is the expression. Still no symptoms of nerve involvement like pains shooting down my leg.

But worse is the effect on my GI - my stomach feels terrible and digesting food is painful the day after I exceed my safe limit of exercise. I do get over it without vomiting or diarrhea but the queasiness is terrible and lingers as compared to the point of original injury in the lower back where the soreness/distress subsides quickly.

Ever heard of such a thing?

Check this video out, it's quite good. I designed an exercise that actually does all three at once but breaking it down as Jeff does here is much easier to do.

He's right in that stretching and a lot of prescribed PT exercises DO NOT work on the core problem of these deeply positioned pelvic linkage tissues that are so tight they "gnaw" at the lower lumbar and SI joint. And create a world of hurt!

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The wall side bends are important to pull the IT band, hip flexors, side flank/stabilizer muscles to loosen and restore mobility around the SI joint. That's what I feel anyway. In fact a did a variant that is more effective by taking a skating "crossover" stance to deepen the stretch.

The Cobras - done properly, meaning you have to keep your lower back stable, abdomen down and bend only the upper spine - is straight out of swimming with a kickboard. Do this well, your kicking will get better too. This one is the counter-move to hours of hunchback cycling, desk work and too much posting on Slowtwitch.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

I can't wait to see the video but maybe the link is missing?

I see the video fine, and I can't post a link for some reason.


Here is my all-in-one version of the same thing. Harder to execute because you are hanging the whole time so the grip limits the duration.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com