Lower Back Pain

[Bio-Active]

Hi All,
My Stats age 38 weight 130 lbs body fat 8 % been lifting 8 years and my diet is really dialed in.
Question I have recently hurt my lower back right about on my belt line. I have been to the doc and had xrays done and the doc determined a strained muscle. Sometimes the pain in the morning is so bad that it is difficult to put my socks and under wear on. I have determined through a process of elimination 2 exercises that are aggravating my back which are my ab workout which had a lot of leg lift involved and heavy bench press. When i say heavy bench i mean when lifting 225 or more on the free weight bench. So i changed my ab workout and started working my chest press exercises on the hammer strength machines for about 3 weeks and the pain seemed to have gone away. however i went back to free weight bench press last Saturday and sure enough my back got real sore again for a couple of days after the workout. Now it was not near as sore as it was before resting for 3 weeks but it was sore enough that i was uncomfortable for those couple of days. Any ideas of things i could do to help speed up my poor old recovering lower back? Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thank for reading my post!

JIM

[Times Roman]

dumb question time on the BP. are your feet on the ground? I had a similar situation years ago, and put two cindar blocks, one on each side of the bench, and just put my feet there... keeps my back more in a straight line

1 alleve 2x daily... am/pm

[Bio-Active]

dumb question time on the BP. are your feet on the ground? I had a similar situation years ago, and put two cindar blocks, one on each side of the bench, and just put my feet there... keeps my back more in a straight line

1 alleve 2x daily... am/pm

Yeah Bro i keep my feet on the ground and my butt on the bench. I always make sure my form is perfect!

[Bio-Active]

dumb question time on the BP. are your feet on the ground? I had a similar situation years ago, and put two cindar blocks, one on each side of the bench, and just put my feet there... keeps my back more in a straight line

1 alleve 2x daily... am/pm

So it looks as though i was wrong! Its not the bench press that seems to be re aggravating my lower back but any ab work out i do seems to be aggravating my lower back. Has any one else seemed to have any experience with this type of lower back injury?

[carbo]

bent over rows sometimes leave my lower back in a world of pain.

have not noticed this with bench or abs exercise though.

are you weating a belt while benching?

[Gas fitter dave]

Go easy bro I had a small complaint like that but just tried ignoring it and now have siatika(can't spell it) and need surgery to corect I have to be carefull what exercises I do all the time and doing stomach like u are saying really sets mine off!

[shortybrolick]

I can relate to the struggle with putting the socks on , and I dont think its a flexibility issue , i believe its a sliped/herniated disc. By no means am I qualified to diagnose, im just a hypochrondiac self diagnoser so dont mind me.


Go see the Doc , NSAIDs could help but also allegedly can hinder gains..
I know the feeling bro it sucks and it messes with motivation.. Hope you get through this.

[matt77]

Well Ive had back issues for a while now and can say yours sounds like a disc injury. I have blown out L5-S1 with surgery to take out the herniation. The pain is still about as bad. I also have a bulge and tear in L4-L5 and authritis in my facet joints from the sacram to below my shoulder blades. Bro take care of your back! Mine happened at work but I am sure lifting has helped the process along.

Get an MRI done Xrays will not be able to show the damage. I had 3 sets of Xrays when I was injured that came back normal. Then had the MRI a week or so later and it was clear what was wrong. I could see it myself. If its bothering you doing certain things stop doing them until you figure out whats wrong. If you keep it messed up for to long while its pushing on a nerve or the nerve is pressed to hard it could cause life long pain.

[Bio-Active]

Well Ive had back issues for a while now and can say yours sounds like a disc injury. I have blown out L5-S1 with surgery to take out the herniation. The pain is still about as bad. I also have a bulge and tear in L4-L5 and authritis in my facet joints from the sacram to below my shoulder blades. Bro take care of your back! Mine happened at work but I am sure lifting has helped the process along.

Get an MRI done Xrays will not be able to show the damage. I had 3 sets of Xrays when I was injured that came back normal. Then had the MRI a week or so later and it was clear what was wrong. I could see it myself. If its bothering you doing certain things stop doing them until you figure out whats wrong. If you keep it messed up for to long while its pushing on a nerve or the nerve is pressed to hard it could cause life long pain.

Update
I have been just using machines for chest last 3 weeks and no ab training. My back feels 99 % better very little pain in the am! I still have 6 pack showing so hopefully i can maintain my abs with just good nutrition. I am gonna get back under that free weight bench in a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

[Bio-Active]

Thanks for all the replies! I will keep everyone posted how the recovery goes!

[doublefister]

Do you do any excercises to strengthen your lower back such as back extensions, good mornings, or stiff legged deadlifts?

[Bio-Active]

Do you do any excercises to strengthen your lower back such as back extensions, good mornings, or stiff legged deadlifts?

i used to but my back has been sore for so long that i have stopped all of those lifts! good news though it has been about 3 weeks since i have trained abs and my back is feeling much better! i even did free weight bench yesterday and my back feels good today! I lifted really light though just to see how it would go! I did 185 for 4 sets of 15. Then after that did 8 other sets with machines so i am really hoping that this is the road to recovery. Hopefully i can maintain my abs through nutrition. I haven't noticed a difference in them yet since i stopped working them!

[doublefister]

Cold have just been inflamed and staying off of it is what made it go away. I just started stretching my lower back and glutes recently and it helped with my back pain too. Diet and nutrition is key anyways when trying to be lean. Doing 1000 crunches or situps is not. I just started doing my abs just so that I can keep them strong even though I do deadlifts and squats I felt that I needed to focus on them more and it has helped.

[Bio-Active]

My lower back is still pretty sore in the morning when i wake but it seems to go away through the day but like i said earlier nothing like before. I was doing a pretty redic ab work out 4 days a week before! fair well to that i suppose!

[G.P.]

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[lovbyts]

I have a herniated (L4/L5) & a partially herniated. I refused surgery & was lucky enough to find a doc that agreed with me. I'm currently working the 3 lifts for 90% of my workouts. First, X2 on what everyone else is saying about seeing a doc. An MRI will show what's wrong if it's disc & will determine your recovery process. One thing that has really helped me is going excessive on warm-ups & stretching. Both deads & squats gave me a lot of trouble at first. I do ass to floor squats to stretch out & get my lower back ready before both deads & squats. I usually use an empty bar (45lbs), 95 lbs, & 135 lbs, 2 sets of 5 each, pausing at the bottom & really feeling the stretch to get ready for my lifts. I did a LOT of empty bar & light weight work for several months & this was after a couple months of nothing but core stabilizing physical therapy stuff. If you want to do things like good mornings use a broomstick until you're sure you're tightening up right before throwing a bar back on. There are a lot of people that will say these exercises are terrible for your back & they may be for some people, but they have helped my recovery tremendously. I add on the weight at a much slower rate & spend a lot more time concentrating on strict perfect form, but I'm just happy to be lifting again & not laying on the living room floor doped up on pain meds. BTW my 3rd MRI which was 7 months after the 2nd actually showed about a 30% improvement on the herniations.

I agree with you but next time use paragraphs. LOL

Unfortunatly it's PT/exercise is not always the answer. I went for 15 years without surgery until I could almost not walk. Surgery was like night and day for me until I re injured it and could NOT walk immediately. Surgery fixed it 80%.

I'm working like you said now after avoiding deads and squats for years. It hurts at first like said but helps. Stretch, take it slow/light.

[Bio-Active]

New update lower back seems to be getting better and better each day! started doing squats again and still doing heavy bench yahoo. Still no ab work outs. It has been over a month since i have trained abs and my 6 pack is still very about the same as when i was working abs every day. Maybe i will be able to maintain my abs with diet alone! I sure hope so! will let every one know how recovery is next week.

[stevey_6t9]

good to hear mate

[G.P.]

Yeah that is good to hear.
Don't worry too much if you can't get on an intense ab routine again right away. Those squats will give your abs lots of work if you're doing them strict. If you can handle front squats without taxing your back too much those will work em even more.
Just remember to take it SLOW!

[lovbyts]

Agreed, glad to hear you are making progress. I know a couple guys at my gym who have had back surgery like me (2x) and they say I am their inspiration. LOL

Yes squats and especially dead lifts will help the abs. I found when I first started sit ups only the first one or two hurt and as long as I did it SLOW and kept my abs firm it helped a lot. I can do decline using 35 lbs on my chest now without any issues but yes my back still hurts, just not doing sit ups.