Decompression caused injury?

[Chickma2]

So I was golfing the other day and had a very minor back tweak like I’ve had 100 times. No big deal. Went to the gym. Squatted through it pretty easily (light squat day). Thought I’d end the workout with some decompression to help the tweak. Did my usual 2-3 minute decompress. Felt fine when hanging. The second I lowered myself back down and my discs tried to “spring back” to their normal position, I can’t even describe how bad the pain was. I couldn’t put any weight on my foot it was so bad. I was stuck hanging there and didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t let go due to the pain. Eventually I had to suck it up let go and just crumpled to the ground. The worst back spasm I’ve ever had. Was writhing in pain for 20 minutes on the ground and couldn’t move even an inch. Just laid there for like 3 hours until my wife came and I crawled into the car. Looked in a mirror and my back is completely uneven now due to the spasm.

I’ve had serious spasm injuries before from poor deadlifts when I started the program, but this was 3-4x worse. And caused by decompression seemingly. Have you ever heard of this? What could have caused decompression to be the catalyst for the injury?

Also as background, every time I decompress it usually hurts for like 2 mins after I get down. It’s a similar pain to this but obviously not even close to as bad. And then after 2 mins it loosens up and feels pretty good. I just assumed this was normal. But there’s always some pain.

Thoughts?

[Mark Rippetoe]

My policy with decompression is that when it started hurting I quit doing it. I have had it immediately correct back pain, but the older I got the less it helped, and then it started hurting. Desiccated old discs do not react well to being sucked apart. Stop doing it.

[Chickma2]

Ok I will stop. I’m only 30 years old so I hope desiccated old discs aren’t the problem. But I have had back injuries throughout my life. It’s a shame because I feel like decompression used to really help.

[Ryan Arnold]

I noticed during a fairly recent back tweak that the decompression was hurting, not helping. I think when your back is feeling good a little decompression on the off days can be good. But when you're having pain, just better to stay away from it altogether. I also generally tell my trainees to avoid it right before or during training for the same reason you would not do any static stretching before you Squat/DL heavy.

[Chickma2]

Thanks. Yea, after how bad this was, I will never touch decompression again when my back is already not feeling 100%.