Pinched Sciatic Nerve?

For the past couple of days, I’ve had a tingly sensation running down my left leg only when I sit. The origin of the sensation seems to be around the L4-L5 area. After a couple of days, I feel the sensation more in my lumbar vertebrae than I do in my legs.

I’m not sure if this is symptomatic of a pinched nerve.
Also, the only potential cause was doing suspended good mornings, which I recorded. Unfortunately I deleted the videos from my camera after I viewed them, but my form was very solid and my lumbar spine was totally neutral throughout the lift. I had absoltuely no pain or discomfort that entire day and didn’t really notice until the next day. This makes me believe it’s either not a pinched nerve or it’s very minor, but I don’t know whether or not I should be avoiding spinal loading until I feel normal again…

Anyone have any similar experiences or advice?

take time off. let your body heal. you have the rest of your life to lift. be smart about it.

check with a doctor, my dad had a pinched sciater nerve
and it got progressively worse cause he just left it thinking it would get better.
it took him around a year to fully heal swimming stretching and seeing physios.

I have pulled muscles in my lower back and glute area several times that have irritated the sciatic nerve on my right side. I just did this again recently during a set of high-rep deadlifts. I saw a doctor and the diagnosis was muscle strain. I got some anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants. A week later, I was squatting again with no discomfort.

I suggest you see a doctor.

My step dad has sciatica (i think that’s what it is called). He went through hell everyday for 8 months before he went to the doctor. After that, he had 2 operations to help alleviate the pain. It’s been a year since his operation and he still has trouble sitting in one position and walking for extended amounts of time. GO TO THE FUCKING DOCTOR!

It seems like my situation isn’t anywhere near as severe as the ones described, because I can barely feel it in my legs at this point, but I do feel like I did something wrong in the lumbar area.

I’ll definitely avoid all spinal loading until the sensation is totally gone - getting more training sessions in is not worth exacerbating an injury - especially one involving the spine.

Since this occurance seems to be mild and I can’t even tell if it’s actually the sciatic nerve, I’ll probably take a few recovery weeks at the least before I consider seeing a doctor, just to make sure it’s worth the expense.

I’ll try anti-inlamatories and rest and wait for improvement but if this issue is looming for more than a couple of weeks then I’ll definitely want to be seeing a doctor.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice.

Seems like your on the right track if you are going to see a doctor.

Do you sit or stand a lot?

This is what has caused me the biggest problems. My back muscles may get sore from lifting heavy, but its when I end up spending extended periods of time sitting that things start to get bad.

I just mention this, because taking some time off is a good idea, but you also want to identify what caused the problem. You mentioned suspended GMs and thats a possibility. But they might not be the problem and it could be something completely un-related to lifting.

When things start to get bad for me some light sled pulling, walking, or treading water seems to help.

Good luck, im sure you’ll be back to lifting in no time.

I do sit a good amount - easily 8 hours most weekdays, probably more. I realize that sitting totally fucks people up, and I’ve been trying lately to counteract the effects of my sitting, by doing a good amount of hip mobility stuff, lengthening my hip flexors, strengthening my glutes, and improving my core stabilization.

It’s beyond me why this happened now as opposed to when I was attempting a max deadlift with a shit ton of spinal flexion, but I do think it’s a fairly minor thing because it doesn’t actually hurt, it’s just a very strange sensation that’s difficult to describe. My spinal erectors in the lumbar area were definitely sore the day after I did those suspended GMs, so I’m hoping it was more a muscular thing than a spine issue. It’s only been four days since I did the GM’s and three days since I felt anything, so I’m going to take it easy, remain optimistic, and see what happens with rest.

I hsd something similar actually happen to me except it was when laying down rather than sitting.

I picked up mcgill’s low back disorders and read through the chapters on nerve flossing, did the appropriate flossing drill recommended in the text 2-3x a day for just a single set of 10 flosses, sensation was gone in a week, never to return.

Ya, check out mcgill’s stuff. Im gonna start reading it too. Also, I notice many times that volume affects me much more than intensity. And further, sets that are higher reps, and closer to failure/fatigue cause more problems than stopping way short of failure.

Thanks for the imput challer. I should look into McGill’s stuff - he seems to be ahead of the rest of the game with spine-related stuff, and I have more than my fair share of spinal dysfunction…

I’ll also look up nerve flossing drills and see what I can find.