My advice to those with disc problems.

[kaptainkeezy04]

I hurt my back last October, after doing leg presses, and mostly just having bad posture while sitting, for years. I stayed away from the weights, and just rested a lot, and stretched all the time. For some reason, this just made my back worse. It got to the point that when I sat down, I had pain from my lower back all the way to my ankle, only on the left side though. Finally I went to get an MRI, and I found that I had protruding L4 and L5 discs. The doctor told me that surgery is a bad idea, and should only be considered when the pain is unbearable. He recommended an inversion table. I got the inversion table, and decided to get back in the gym. I only did exercises that would in no way use my lower back, so mostly chest, arms, shoulders, chin ups, and machines for legs. Over time, my back became better. Then, I decided to start working out my back again, and every workout, do something that isolate my lower back, and go very slow, and focus on form. Over time, I started to feel as if I didn't have a back injury, except in the gym for select workouts. I can now do squats and deadlifts. There is an annoying pinch in every rep i do, but when I am out of the gym, there is no pain at all. I used the inversion table as often as I could, and i attribute a lot of my healing to it. I hope this helps. If someone is telling you to just rest your back for a couple of months, I am here to tell you that it only made my back worse, because it weakened all of the little muscles in my lower back. Good luck.

[kaptainkeezy04]

I would also like to note that I suck in my stomach as often as I can remember to do it. I don't do any special breathing techniques, I just breathe normally. When you are laying down, or standing up (keep ur shoulders back), bring your belly button as close as u can to your spine, and to further enhance this, squeeze the area between your balls, and @sshole as if you were trying to hold in your pee. This will strengthen all the muscles around your spine, and strengthen your core muscles, which may be the reason you injured your lower back in the first place.

[yannick35]

kaptainkeezy04 thank you very much for sharing this. Great advise, i have an inversion table myself, started taking glucosamine complex with collagen about a year ago now.

I have L4L5 L5S1 dried disk, high is still good my pain comes from weak ligaments, i am doing prolotherapy now to fix this.

I am done with heavyweights, i still do leg press but with light weights and shoot for 15 reps instead.

Do you think it is possible to rehydrate a disk? the invesion table create space between the disc to flood some blood and nutrients inside.

I am not sure if it can pull back a hernia inside the disc.

[lovbyts]

My last L5 rupture was on an inversion table. LOL
It was my fault. My back had been giving me problems for a couple weeks. I had surgery on L3 n L4 2 years prior and everything had been very good up to this. I did an inverted sit-up without warming up and when my back already hurt. Pop/snap/bang. that was in. Pretty much crippled for 10 days until I have surgery.

[kaptainkeezy04]

Yannick, I am sorry, I am not an expert, and cannot give you advice on what is best for your situation, but I hear that inversion tables do help rehydrate discs.

Lovbyts, I'm sure you have heard by now that the inversion table is not the cause of your L5 rupture, but it was coming for years, and was bound to happen.

[lovbyts]

Yannick, I am sorry, I am not an expert, and cannot give you advice on what is best for your situation, but I hear that inversion tables do help rehydrate discs.

Lovbyts, I'm sure you have heard by now that the inversion table is not the cause of your L5 rupture, but it was coming for years, and was bound to happen.

Yes I know but I also know if I had not done it then it may not had happened because I had just started getting back into shape. I was hitting the gym, not lifting heavy, I had just lost about 30 lbs and down to a good building weight but I had stressed it on vacation with a LOT of scuba diving, carrying weights, tanks and also from 100x more sex I had in years all within 2 weeks LOL.

My back had been doing good up until this point, 2 years after my L3 n L4 operation for herniation. If I had only iced it instead of stressing it more with the inverted situp before stretching I would be in much better shape now. Now when my back gets sore I take it easy, I dont ever stretch and I ice it.

I still get sore from WAY to much sex on vacations but like they say, to much is never enough. LOL

[yannick35]

Guys inversion is great but never invert more then 60 degree and start with max 20 degree until the body adjusts.

Thanks kaptainkeezy04, i found some good sites that say the same, that rehydration is possible.

I should have bookmarked an interesting site i found last week, including a study on bunnies (NO JOKE), they put pressure in one lombar disc for 1 week, and it was drained of water, then they decompressed it for 28 days and the disc was fully hydrated again.

When i was going to the chiro for a year and a half my lower back was getting worst, the ligaments where laxed to the max and my muscles had to support the lower back even more which created enormous pressure in the lower back, at that time i went for an mri and found 2 dark disc in the lower back L4L5 and L5S1.

Since then i have been taken a serious glucosamine complex along with collagen and drinking lots of water, i will try to get another MRI soon to see if anything changed.

Prolo does work but it takes a lot of time. I do beleive in decompression a lot. It has been almost a year now that i felt my lower back compress like hell and it feels good.

Started squatting and deadlifting again but really not heavy, i dont even have 100 pounds on the squat and deadlift with 80 pounds, i feel the pump and that is what i want also shoot for 15 reps.