Hurt My Back Squatting

Dammit!!

It’s beginning of week 3 and I was doing great but I hurt my back today on my last set of squats.

I’m sure it was due to improper form although I’ve read on T-Nation a few times on how to do them properly (CW or Ian King perhaps both?)

My problem lies with the positioning of the back. I know I’m supposed to keep my back straight but that doesn’t mean keep an upright/vertical trunk.

I know it’s bad and impossible to give medical diagnosis on the internet but I’ll ask anyway. I was at the bottom of my last rep and felt an instant sharp pain in my lower spine and then it went away. So it seemed like all was good. I went on to complete 10x3 on the leg press with 20 lbs more than last week with no pain whatsoever.

Then I’m standing around in line at the mall and the sharp pain comes back and it feels like someone is yanking my spinal cord out from the bottom but only for a split second. It hung around for a few minutes then away. Then 45 minutes later I turn to take my seatbelt off in the car and it happens again.

Any thoughts or reccomendations would be welcome.

I suppose I should do way more reps and lighter weights at first to get used to the motion better?

thanks

-DT

Do yourself a favor and have it looked at. It might be nothing, or it could be something serious. I fucked up my back 4 years ago, and couldn’t bend it in any direction (not out of pain, but physically couldn’t move it). I was told by my loving parents to “walk it off” basically. It eventually cleared up, but every so often the pain comes back.

Save yourself the troube, get it looked at. If its nothing, then great! Get back under that bar and squat properly. If it is something serious, find out what you can do to fix it.

yeah hopefully it’s nothing serious, then get back under the bar and FRONT squat. problem solved.

[quote]davidtower wrote:
I suppose I should do way more reps and lighter weights at first to get used to the motion better?
[/quote]

As long as you mean after getting your back checked out.

I think it’s been said from time to time that “beginners” should use higher reps and focus on learning the movements and using good form for a while, before getting into the low rep work.

I don’t know how long you’ve been at it, but it bears repeating for other folks out there just getting started.

[quote]vroom wrote:

I think it’s been said from time to time that “beginners” should use higher reps and focus on learning the movements and using good form for a while, before getting into the low rep work.

I don’t know how long you’ve been at it, but it bears repeating for other folks out there just getting started.[/quote]

Not to be argumentative, but I?ve never really understood this advice. It sounds good on the surface, but can new lifters really learn good form simply from lifting light? I?d tend to think that they can also learn bad form from this because one can lift really badly with light weights and get away with it. Also, like anything, the more you do a movement, the more it becomes ingrained and the harder it will be to unlearn it. Thus if a new lifter learns to squat with his back hunched or starts up with his knees, is he suddenly going to learn better when he goes heavy? I doubt it.

I guess what I?m saying is yes, lifting light is good to learn form, but only if it?s correct form. One can also learn bad form from lifting light and that could be detrimental in the long run.

Just food for thought.

T-Cop, I think if you look at what I wrote, you’ll see it isn’t suggesting that low weight helps you learn the form, but that you need to stay in the low weight zone for a while… at least until you have.

[quote]vroom wrote:

I think it’s been said from time to time that “beginners” should use higher reps and focus on learning the movements and using good form for a while, before getting into the low rep work.[/quote]

The purpose of the higher reps isn’t really to instill a sense of form, but to give the body time to adjust to doing resistance work and to give the person time to learn the movements before jumping into “riskier” heavy loads.

A beginner won’t need the heavier loads right away to make good gains.

I’m really NOT trying to be argumentative either, but I think it is good for beginners to see this. I’m not sure it is mentioned all that often.

Sorry about your back. I’ve suffered from back problems on and off for 20 years, so I understand. I definately agree that you need to see a doctor. It may be nothing, but it also could be serious. When I first hurt my back it was working on a loading dock and I felt something pop. The pain went away quickly and I didn’t think anything about it till the next day when I could not get out of bed. Point being, you just can’t tell what’s going on simply by feel. If you did some damage, the longer you wait, the worse it may be in the long run.

One other thing. Don’t assume that bad form was automatically the culprit. I think just as likely (perhaps more likely), is that your core stabilization muscles are weak. Most people have weak core muscles, even some pretty strong dudes, because they are able to over compensate with the big abdominal and back muscles. When I’m talking about core stabilization muscles, I"m talking about smaller, deeper muscles like the transverse abdominus, the multifidus, quadratus lumborum, the pelvic floor muscles, etc. Weaknesses there can cause problems like I experienced, and like what may have happened to you.

[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m really NOT trying to be argumentative either, but I think it is good for beginners to see this. I’m not sure it is mentioned all that often.[/quote]

I see your point, I’m just concerned that people may misinterpret it to mean that all they have to the is lift light for a while and suddenly they will automatically know how to lift big. Lifting light till you learn good form IS important, as long as you know you ARE lifting with good form.

I had something very much like this happen to me while I was finishing out the “White Man Can Jump” routine over 2 years ago. The symptoms of my injury were very similar to yours in the location and manner you describe the pain, however my sharp pains were more consistent and hurt when I bent over (as for example bending over to lift the lid on the toilet).

I went for about a year trying to rehab the back. It got tolerably better after about a month of very light squatting and deadlifting (I hurt myself squatting 355, I spent the next month not daring to squat over 185, I think I got squirrely once and did some reps at 225 - just to give you a notion of what was light and heavy for me). But even after this month backing off, the problem became recurring. I would eventually get back up in weights and then would start to feel twinges again from the injury. It was absolutely a limiting factor in my lifts - not to mention it didn’t feel none to good.

After about 6 months I went on a vacation and wound up taking the next 4 months off from lifting completely. It was sad, but it let my back get back to form - at least I thought so. Eventually I got back to what were heavy weights for me and I started feeling the twinges again.

I say all this just so you get a notion that I went through the long journey of trying to get this right on my own.

I used ice, heat, stretching, anti-inflamatories (motrin), massage, etc. it got better but it didn’t heal.

Eventually I went to a chiropractor and that got it right. He explained that the cause of the symptoms was that the lower back had been pulled out of alignment. The muscles, to compensate for the misalignment tighted and strengthened to support the ailment, creating an imbalance. The problem with this was that whenever I started strenthening those muscles again, it encouraged that imbalance and wound up encouraging the back to stay (or go further) out of alignment. He readjusted me and I started over with my squats. The end result is that this problem is gone and I’m able to move on with increasing my lifts.

I started going to the chiropractor about a year ago (I go once every two months now just for check-ups and minor adjustments) and I’ve got no problems with the back anymore. At the very least you should explore this option just to have the chiropractor see if your out of alignment. Obviously you want to find a reputable Dr. who is more concerned about fixing you than earning your business, and there are a few out there.

Some tips to help (at least what has helped me):

The injury occured because of bad form (surprise). When you squat pay particular attention to how or if you favor a side. Tons of people do this and everyone of them is encouraging a dangerous imbalance. Don’t shift your hips at the bottom, don’t turn your knees in, keep your abs tight, etc.

Stretch your hips, do it, do it a lot. One of the most under appreciated muscle clusters and one of the most influential in how we lift. They get tight and they start pulling things wonky. Before, after, that’s a difference in philosophy but doing it is a must.

Read the Out of Kilter series by Ian King on this site(this should be a given)

Make sure that your keeping a balance between your hamstring and quad dominant lifts. They may progress different but they should be progressing together, so to speak. The White Man Can Jump Series is big time squat dominant, and I was already imbalanced towards that lift over deads. This was a bad mix for me.

I used the first phase of Ian Kings Limping Series as a rehab for my back before all the chiropractor stuff. This helped for many reasons. Mainly because it’s bodyweight exercises that exposed my imbalances and forced me to correct them without putting extenuous stress on my injured back.

Good luck, let me know how things turn out for you.

Greg

I really appreciate all the replies. I think my desk job and my second job (online poker) certainly contribute to me having weak stabilizers although I have been doing some light deads at home and I’ve always tried to balance out my bench with bentover rows.

I’ve really only been squatting for 2 weeks but I’ve done some bulgarians at home with DB’s in the past. I think that I might have “bounced” up from the bottom of the lift and had an arched back. I was only squatting 125 and I weigh 165 so I wasn’t going too heavy.

I just hope I can keep hitting the gym hard. I’m eating for size and strength and put on 6 pounds in 2 weeks so far.

[quote]T-Cop wrote:
vroom wrote:

I think it’s been said from time to time that “beginners” should use higher reps and focus on learning the movements and using good form for a while, before getting into the low rep work.

I don’t know how long you’ve been at it, but it bears repeating for other folks out there just getting started.

Not to be argumentative, but I?ve never really understood this advice. It sounds good on the surface, but can new lifters really learn good form simply from lifting light? I?d tend to think that they can also learn bad form from this because one can lift really badly with light weights and get away with it. Also, like anything, the more you do a movement, the more it becomes ingrained and the harder it will be to unlearn it. Thus if a new lifter learns to squat with his back hunched or starts up with his knees, is he suddenly going to learn better when he goes heavy? I doubt it.

I guess what I?m saying is yes, lifting light is good to learn form, but only if it?s correct form. One can also learn bad form from lifting light and that could be detrimental in the long run.

Just food for thought.

[/quote]

This sounds good in theory, but I haven’t found it to be the case in actual lifting. Heavy weights create an incentive to use bad form, light weights don’t.

If you have bad form with light weights, your form is going to be even worse with heavy weights.