Novice Linear Progression with painful bulging

[Andrea]

Hi Rip.
First at all, I want to thank you for providing the Starting Strength book and method to us all. Beside the effectiveness of the SS method, I think it's the most sober way to approach to strength training in these days of yelling and screaming and barbell dropping in the gyms. I do not tolerate fanatics and the SS method does not produce them. Thanks also for the podcasts, I really enjoy watching them on youtube at dinner and in my free time.
I am sorry if my english may not be perfect but I’m from Italy and I do not practice english a lot. Also, sorry for the use of kgs in this post.

I have some questions but first a bit of introduction to my situation. I am male 28 years old, 173cm, 75kg. I started crossfit in june 2016 and stopped october 2017 due to study necessities.
I discovered the existence of you and Starting Strength in the last months of frequenting the crossfit gym but kept going there because it was the only place in which I had access to an olympic barbell and regular plates and at the time I could not afford the expense of buying equipment for a home gym.
However, there we used to follow also a strength program that took my 1RMs to 135kg for the (high bar) squat, 110kg for the bench and 130kg for the deadlift (yes, I know these numbers are ridiculous for one year of training). I think my deadlift was so low because it was trained too rarely and I did not understand the right efficient movement pattern at the time. I think I never measured my 1RM for the overhead press.
At some point in september 2017 I hurt my back, I think in an attempt to execute a 95kg split jerk in which I leaned back too much. From that event, I had a bulging disc between T10 and T11 and it usually hurts when someone touches that spot and when I lean back or forward too much.
In june 2019 my economic situation changed and I started buying some equipment for my home gym. At first I started the stronglifts 5x5 (I didn’t know the details of your linear progression), using the high bar technique for the squat and never went over 90kg in the squat. I started reading the Starting Strength book and doing the novice linear progression in the middle of november with 70kg for the LOW bar squat and 80kg for the deadlift. One month later I was squatting 111.5kg and deadlifting 125kg, both for 5 reps (obviously I am also pressing and benching).
I am not moving forward with the weights because I am still waiting for the shipment of a squat rack with safety bars and more weights.

Now my questions:

1) I am pressing 57.5kg overhead. Due to the pain of the bulging while leaning back, I found myself uncomfortable in the hip movement during the overhead press, even though the leaning back during that hip movement is not so excessive to trigger the pain. But I still fear that leaning back under a load will be bad for my injured disc and/or that will someday use the weight that will bend me back too much and worsen the situation. I understand that the press you teach is not a press while leaning and that the hip movement objective is to start moving the barbell while the shoulder musculature is contracting isometrically (correct me if I am wrong). Do you think I can avoid the hip movement to feel safer? I mean, I train because I love to lift and I would like to lift the longer I can during my life and the heaviest without the risk to worsen my back situation.

2) From december 25 I started experiencing back pain in the spot of the bulged disk almost continuously during the day. The pain is not excessive but it makes me feel really bad and my mood go down, because it is always there, 80% of the time, and makes me feel uncomfortable. I fear my condition will get worse over time and may evolve to an herniated disc. Moreover, everyone surrounding me (family, friends, etc) is sceptic about the healing properties of weight training and tells me to stop lifting. Do you think the pain could be due to the bigger moment arm on the back for the low bar squat? Should I switch back to the high bar? Should I keep doing the low bar and simply get back to 10-15kg less in the progression for the squat and the deadlift and keep going up making 1kg jumps instead of 2.5kg jumps? Or should I go straight ahead ignoring the pain and blame the unusual cold we are experiencing here in my town in these weeks? (By the way, does intense cold make injured disc hurt harder?)

Thank you for the attention.

PS. Just for your knowledge, the “Cocchi” in Cocchi Americano is spelled like “kokkee”, italian “ch” is spelled gutturally, like english “k”. And I do not move my arms while talking

[Mark Rippetoe]

1) I am pressing 57.5kg overhead. Due to the pain of the bulging while leaning back, I found myself uncomfortable in the hip movement during the overhead press, even though the leaning back during that hip movement is not so excessive to trigger the pain. But I still fear that leaning back under a load will be bad for my injured disc and/or that will someday use the weight that will bend me back too much and worsen the situation. I understand that the press you teach is not a press while leaning and that the hip movement objective is to start moving the barbell while the shoulder musculature is contracting isometrically (correct me if I am wrong). Do you think I can avoid the hip movement to feel safer? I mean, I train because I love to lift and I would like to lift the longer I can during my life and the heaviest without the risk to worsen my back situation.

I think you should do strict presses until the back heals. It will heal eventually, and you can add the hips then.

2) From december 25 I started experiencing back pain in the spot of the bulged disk almost continuously during the day. The pain is not excessive but it makes me feel really bad and my mood go down, because it is always there, 80% of the time, and makes me feel uncomfortable. I fear my condition will get worse over time and may evolve to an herniated disc. Moreover, everyone surrounding me (family, friends, etc) is sceptic about the healing properties of weight training and tells me to stop lifting. Do you think the pain could be due to the bigger moment arm on the back for the low bar squat? Should I switch back to the high bar? Should I keep doing the low bar and simply get back to 10-15kg less in the progression for the squat and the deadlift and keep going up making 1kg jumps instead of 2.5kg jumps? Or should I go straight ahead ignoring the pain and blame the unusual cold we are experiencing here in my town in these weeks? (By the way, does intense cold make injured disc hurt harder?)

Again, your back is going to heal anyway if you keep training. If you make the back angle more vertical, the stress on the back will be more compression and less moment. In other words, the stress is still proportional to the load, but it is expressed across the back differently in the 2 positions, thus producing a different adaptation. So which adaptation do you want? Seems to me that you'd want your back strong in the positions you need back strength for, and a vertical back angle is not the angle in which the back is normally loaded. Cold has nothing to do with this, as global warming has made cold a thing of the past.

PS. Just for your knowledge, the “Cocchi” in Cocchi Americano is spelled like “kokkee”, italian “ch” is spelled gutturally, like english “k”. And I do not move my arms while talking [/QUOTE]

Thanks for the pronunciation correction. I do not believe you can speak without waiving your hands. Post a video of you speaking with your hands in your pockets.

[Ivan Stepic]

I do not believe you can speak without waiving your hands. Post a video of you speaking with your hands in your pockets.

You made my day, again. Thanks.

[Satch12879]

I do not believe you can speak without waiving your hands.

I mean, I can't. We're actually kind of proud of this, culturally.

[Andrea]

Thank you for the reasasurance. Yes, I want my back strong in the position I need my back strength for, so I'll keep training.

Post a video of you speaking with your hands in your pockets.

I'll do it ASAP.

Do you have any hypotesis on the reason why my injured disc started to hurt? I can only suppose that the 111.5kg load was applied too early in respect of the adaptation of the back to the stress. Because I did not feel any pain in the week while I was squatting 102.5, 105, 107.5 and 110kg. Now that I think about it, I started feeling pain two days after the second workout with 111.5.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Could be your squatting position.

[Andrea]

It took quite a long time for me to mount and ulpoad this video.

YouTube

I think (also because of how i feel it) I try to keep my torso more vertical than it has to be and I arch too much my lower back in order to stay vertical.

Should I keep the knee angle more closed and the hip angle more opened, with a straighter torso?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Nothing wrong with these squats.

[Andrea]

It's good to hear that.

I have another question: why the 3x5 with increasing weight method is not applied to pull/chin ups?

Anyway, I didn't upload the video of me speaking with my hands in my pokets because there is like a bug in my camera that makes me look like I am moving my hands. I hope I solve this soon.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have another question: why the 3x5 with increasing weight method is not applied to pull/chin ups?

What if you can only do 4 chins?