T Nation

Lower Back Injury

Injuries and Rehab
#1

I injured my lower back a few years back deadlifting. Something just popped in my back, kinda like a cable breaking off a suspension bridge. Needless to say it was painful, I had trouble getting out of bed for week or so. But when I’m finally got myself up walking, I was ok.

So I stopped DL for a while. Introduce it back when i feel ok. But no more than 2 session or so, I would tweak it again. Never as bad as the first time, but it was bad enough for me to stop the workout early and have a tight back for the next day or so.

So this cycle of Deadlifting, tweak, stop for awhile then start again been going on for a few years now.

I was wondering if anybody have any advice for me. Should I see a professional? I haven’t, if so, what kind? Should I just simply stop DL’s? A particular set of exercises? Thanks in advance.

#2

Did you do anything to try and rehab during those periods where you stopped deadlifting? Any supplemental exercises to try to balance your strength? Done any personal assessment or have an assessment performed by somebody else regarding both form and muscle balance/activation/etc.?

Not to just call you out, since it is seen often on message boards regarding rehab and injury, but people really need to think about things sometimes before they ask. You asked if you should see a professional. For about “a few years now”, you have been having these on and off back problems…more than likely there is something going on. Whether you need to see an ortho regarding this or somebody that can do a structural and FMS assessment to determine weaknesses is up to you. But just taking the “sit back and let it heal on its own” approach isn’t going to help in the majority of cases, and obviously with yours hasn’t been successful since you keep having the recurrent issue. The best comparison I can give is if your car broke down or shook violently everytime you drove over 60 MPH, would you just wait a while before you drove 60 MPH again, or would you bring it in to get checked out? Your body is amazing and can find ways to “get by” if things are not fixed, but it will eventually all break down if not taken care of.

#3

Dude relax. The whole point of my post is to get an idea of what is available for me. FMS? What is that? An ortho? I thought they dealt with the severely crippled. The whole point is that I’m clueless. You’re assuming I know all this shit and simply ignoring it.

#4

If I came off as confrontational, that was not my intentions. More or less I was making a comment about some of the injury posts in general, and I can see where you felt it was only directed at you. I did not assume that “you knew all of that shit”, which is why I was saying you should go to see somebody who does. The big thing is that this is a continuing problem and issue. It may be something as simple as an anterior pelvic tilt due to muscular imbalances or something more complex or a more serious issue may have resulted from the repeated injury without rehabilitation. Without being able to see how your body is compensating during activity, it is very difficult to determine what the root problem and subsequent problems could be.

FMS = Functional Movement Screen. There are several variations - Gray Cook has one, the NASM has one, and I believe there are others as well. I have yet to meet an orthopedic surgeon who has put a patient through one, but there may be some that do. Most of the people I have interacted with who perform the FMS are physical therapist, athletic trainers, and some performance enhancement/strength and conditioning coaches.

There is another thread in the injury/rehab forum started by JoabSonOfZeruiah called “The Lower Back Pain Reference Thread”. There are some good articles to reference there.