Lower Back Pain

[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.