Basically, it means theyve deemed you as a member of the vast majority (~95%) of people who experience back pain but have very good outcomes, and no concern over obvious tissue damage.
In the no red-flag group (often referred to as mechanical back pain), significant recovery is expected in 2 weeks, and complete recovery by 6 for the majority of individuals. What’s more, this resolution tends to occur without any “special” or magical exercise.
Because you don’t have specific tissue damage, and because you don’t need special exercise to improve, you’ve got the power to decide what your body can tolerate over the coming weeks.
Generally, your job is to keep active as much as normal, but modifying what you do so you arent walking around feeling like a cripple.
Feel free to continue lifting weights, but choose exercises that don’t irritate your pain. Good options often involve machine or dumbbell exercises - especially for lower body. Some individuals report regular walking, swimming or wading feel great, so you can try these strategies also. Unfortunately, BJJ may need to take a little break, but only because it is likely to flare you up in this early-pain period.
If you do flare up your back pain with exercising, don’t worry! With mechanical back pain, increases in pain following activity are hardly ever caused by increased damage or injury to the structures. Instead, it’s usually just an irritable area (the back) telling you it wants to have a bit more of a relax.
To summarise:
The hospital has deemed that your back is safe: you don’t have any tissue damage of concern and you will likely improve without any special management
I suggest keeping your activiy as normal as possible, and modifying as needed so that you aren’t exercising through massive pain.
If you do flare up your pain, don’t worry - it doesn’t mean you have increased injury or reinjured any structures
It is super easy to have your pelvis become misaligned and then any sprain/strain situation can become perpetually “stuck” and the tissues stay irritated. Generally sprains/strains heal with time well enough, but if you stay misaligned, it can get irritated simply from sitting and doing normal movements. If you drive for a living, you may be literally sitting on the problem and helping it stay a problem.
Besides going and seeing your local body mechanic, aka chiropractor, try this:
The secret for old guys like us is to do this with as little tension as possible. Stay loose and let your range of motion happen as naturally as possible. Also, keep a long spine. Think that you are trying to separate the vertebrae, pulling them apart, one off the top of another, as you do this movement.
Don’t be surprised if you can get a “clunk” out of the low back or SI Joints. Just take it easy and don’t move into pain!