Originally Posted by
djo.dadof2
Thanks for the comments! I'm happy to have found SS for this and other reasons.
I played hockey for a few years and started some resistance exercise (I won't call it strength training) as a teen. Pretty standard stuff for a Canadian kid. The resistance work was guided almost exclusively by the Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding (this was pre-internet) so it was high reps of what we'd now call assistance movements. I've never had an incidence of back pain during any of these activities although it's certainly possible that they've contributed to them.
My dad hurt his back when I was a child lifting me over his head, and has basically blamed that/me for his own chronic back pain ever since although I've doubted it was the cause of more than one event. He's had occasional back pain for as long as I can remember though. I've taken for granted that I would be prone to back pain for my whole life because of his remarks, and no doubt that's lead to some bad movement patterns as I've tried doing stupid things like lifting with my legs instead of my back. I think it was an unhelpful thing to tell me, although I take responsibility for whatever I've done with the advice.
In the last week I've done a lot of reading, particularly the books by Dr. Stuart McGill. A lot of it makes sense. One thing that I wonder about though is that, as with Chiropractors, no matter what the diagnosis ends up being, the treatment is always the same. In this case it's the Big 3 exercises (curl up, bird dog, side plank), although those do strike me as useful accessory movements to safely strengthen muscles in the area. His work suggests that poor motor engrams around stabilizing my lumbar (plus the fact that I work a desk job and therefore sit around 10 hours a day) have produced both weak and fatigued lumbar support muscles, which manifest in micro movements in the spine under shear stress, which my body reacts to with a spasm to protect my spine. Major self-diagnosis there but, again, the treatment plan is clear: train for strength using good form.
I've started training again after taking just a few days off to get over the acute pain of the latest incident. I'm happily already at very close to the weight that I was doing before the incident, so all's at least as well as it was before. This has actually been one of the fastest and (mentally) easiest incidents to recover from because of the advice and information in the SS book and the youtube videos. You all deserve my gratitude.