Possible Lower Back Injury/Lumbar problems?

Ok so this lower back pain started about 4-5 months ago and I first really felt it or noticed it during a 4 hour drive back home. The lower back pain I feel is comparable to the “burn” feeling I feel after doing deadlifts. But the worst part about it is that it doesn’t go away easily and I have to distort the angle of my back in my sitting position for it to subside. It goes away entirely once I lie completely flat on the ground. The pain always recurs while I’m sitting down for an extended amount of time.Could this possibly be a lower back injury that I have incurred sometime during my training? Or do I just have some sort of lumbar problem that I need to get checked out? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, this is a very bothersome issue for me and it impedes me from doing any sort of lower back exercises.

[quote]IUmuscle wrote:
Ok so this lower back pain started about 4-5 months ago and I first really felt it or noticed it during a 4 hour drive back home. The lower back pain I feel is comparable to the “burn” feeling I feel after doing deadlifts. But the worst part about it is that it doesn’t go away easily and I have to distort the angle of my back in my sitting position for it to subside. It goes away entirely once I lie completely flat on the ground. The pain always recurs while I’m sitting down for an extended amount of time.Could this possibly be a lower back injury that I have incurred sometime during my training? Or do I just have some sort of lumbar problem that I need to get checked out? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, this is a very bothersome issue for me and it impedes me from doing any sort of lower back exercises.[/quote]

During the periods of sitting your hip flexors are in a shortened postion. Went shortened and or/tight they will anteriorly tilt the pelvis and create compression in the spine.

The best way allievate this from happening short-term is micro breaks during your drive just to get out of car and walk around. Perfect world scenerio get out and stretch your hip flexors.

This isnt intended to be a definitive answer to your issue, there are other possibilites, i feel this maybe most likely with out an actual assesment

you probably have weak/short/thight hip flexors, need to train those more often

try decline sit-ups

The hip flexors are probably tight (iliopsoas complex, rectus femoris), and the psoas is probably weak. Stretch the hip flexors a lot, esp. before lifting. Strengthen the psoas as well, check out these vids…

As someone who just suffered a low back injury, I do not recommend decline sit-ups, for anyone.

sitting isn’t a very natural position for humans. squatting is supposed to be :slight_smile:

i used to find sitting really comfortable and lacked the mobility to squat. now i’ve got the mobility to squat (maintaining a good lumbar curve) i find sitting really very uncomfortable for my lumbar spine.

one thing to try is a lumbar support cushion. i think the idea is for it to encourage you to sit into your glutes / hip flexors more like a squat rather than collapsing / rounding the spine into the seat. breaks are good. moving around generally.

i actually do most of my computer work lying down these days with a laptop. no one position is comfortable enough for me to stay in it for very long, so i fairly continually move without thinking of it. when i’m seated i kind of forget to move until things start hurting.

makes driving hard, though.

good idea on the lumbar support. I got one for my car, works great.