I was pulling my final set of back offs at 315lbs. At near the top of the pull I got a sudden sharp pain in my back on the left hand side. I put the weight down pretty quickly. The pain radiates from the hip to the bottom third of my back. It isn’t spinal. I’m taking ibrufen. It’s not agony, but it certainly hurts. I pulled the weight off the bar today and tried a few pulls with the bar empty without much bother. My guess is I twisted slightly on the last phase of the pull due to feeling fatigued and it’s torn/sprained something. I intend to keep on training and just work up to where it hurts. I suspect I’m going to feel it on all the other lifts as it hurts when I arch and squat. Anything else I should be doing ?
Still nagging, but not as bad as a week ago. I did my regular Friday work out medium squats, heavy press and deadlifts. I stopped my warm ups for the DL at 140Kg as I could feel an unusual stretch down the left hand side of my lower back, so I thought it prudent not to go any further. It’s most obvious if I twist, arch my lower back, or bring the left leg up high, there is a stiffness across the glute and the lower back around the top of the pelvis.
I’m not deliberately stretching, but I do have to twist and raise my leg to put on socks- and I have continued training throughout . I trained agains yesterday heavy squats, heavy bench and rows. My lower back was pretty stiff after the session and I can feel minor discomfort during the rows. Do you think I’m safe going back to full weight and volume for the deadlifts ?
I was talking more in the general sense. All of the movements you said hurt are movements that generally place that area on stretch.....not necessarily meaning you are deliberately stretching. I have found that putting my socks on can irritate my back first thing in the morning, so I place my foot up on something instead, which limits the amount of lumbar and thoracic flexion required to put them on. Stiffness and minor discomfort are not typically something that warrants excessive caution. If I remember correctly, you are in your early 60s? Is that right, or am I thinking of another poster on this board?
That’s correct, I’m 61 this year. I’m not really concerned about the soreness, unless it’s something agonising. I just didn’t want to push on too fast and find I’d done something more permanent by being gung-ho. It seems to be slowly healing and I’m still lifting, it was just the DL I was concerned about. Certainly there was an unusual stretch at 140Kg, but no pain. I want to go to 170Kg for a single, which is close to my max of 172.5Kg and then back offs, 3 sets of 2 at 140Kg strapped. Do you think that’s wise ? I don’t need a guarantee, only some advice that I’m not doing something stupid.
I pulled a single at 160Kg with 2x3 back off sets at 130Kg which went well. I did create some upper back muscle soreness which is probably a result of over compensating/over the thinking the lift for fear of repeating the injury. I’m beginning to wonder if rack pulls and halting deadlifts might be in my future ?
I’m willing to bet your hamstrings and/or hip flexors are weak. If this is the case then the pelvis will be posteriorly tilted leading to a loss of low back extension and a subsequent over stretching of the back muscles. Before you go and do worthless shit like leg curls and leg raises, have a coach carefully review your technique. You may need to lighten the load under a coaches eye and once the groove is perfected, then you would add weight. Every tweak I ever got was due to faulty technique.