German doing dumb shit in his home gym then asking strangers for medical advice

Hey guys,

I’m new here so here’s a short introduction:

I’m a German pharmacist, mid twenties, weighing in at 200 lbs at the moment, 6 foot. Training for 8 years consistently. Fucked around the first 4 years as I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t eat enough for a long time, changed that about 2 years ago. Seriously upped my schnitzel intake.

So, because of the COVID situation gyms are closed, I set up a home gym, it’s outside and it’s around 0-10° C (0 is the freezing point of water for you Fahrenheit guys, so I think that’s about 32-50° F). Since then I got a problem. During squats, it happened two times in the last 4 weeks, I let my lower back collapse in the hole with around 300 on my back and both times when I got half the way back up, there was a sting on the right side of my lower back and upper hip and the workout was over. I also believe that my hip shifted to the right on this rep.

Squat form is usually tight. Got the problem I’m going too deep sometimes but I got that in check with a partner screaming “UP!” at me. Here I wasn’t focused because of some outside factors.

It happened 2 days ago, at first I couldn’t get out of bed after laying down. It got progressively worse the first 12 hours. Now it’s getting better, took an ibuprofen and a bit of a muscle relaxant and chilled out a bit. Last time it took about 4 days, so in time for the next workout where I didn’t have problems.

Now symptoms are:

- Pain on the right side of the hip above and under the end of the hip bone (iliac crest)

- Pain during laying down an contracting my glutes


- Pain if I stand up straight, lift my right straightened leg up about 15 degrees, in my lower back and a light sting running down my left leg.

I first thought it was the Quadratus lumborum which got strained but I’m not so sure about that anymore. Pain during bending over is nearly gone, no pain during a squat movement (BW) right now. I will order a friend of mine to perform a straight leg test later to see if that is positive.


I’m not worried about the pain going away until Saturday when I train again but I’m a bit worried about the pain while raising my leg. A guy I know just herniated a disc during a 365 squat (he normally has a clean form, he read starting strength, he trains diligently, but I didn’t see the squat) that’s bothering me a bit.

I’d appreciate all advice. Maybe I’ll see a doctor but here in Germany it takes at least 4 weeks until I can see one with these mild symptoms. So that’s not a right-now-option.

You did not mention any red flag symptoms in your description, so I would not worry about diagnostics (getting a straight leg raise test or an image) to label this as anything other than a "back tweak" because they would not change the intervention (after all that's what a diagnosis is for right?). Most of these types of tweaks work themselves out on their own over the course of anywhere from a few days to a couple of months. You will probably have to significantly reduce the load and then gradually build yourself up again with bigger jumps. I would do linear progression style loading with squats and deadlifts 2x/week. Depending on how bad it is, I would probably start between 95-185 and take 10-20 lb jumps a session until you are back in the mid-high 200s before transitioning back to a similar program that you were just on. Also, depending on the environmental situation, when things get heavy again, you may have to change the program such that it allows for shorter rest intervals, so you do not get cold between your sets. Something like a top set with larger backoffs for sets across, so you can get away with a 2-3 min rest interval. Hope this helps!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nick D'Agostino

You did not mention any red flag symptoms in your description, so I would not worry about diagnostics (getting a straight leg raise test or an image) to label this as anything other than a "back tweak" because they would not change the intervention (after all that's what a diagnosis is for right?).

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It feels like a back tweak you’re right but the straight leg raise test is positive with pain down my left leg while raising the right one. It’s not really a sharp pain, I’d say a 1 or 2/10 but it still indicates a participation of the sciatic nerve in this. I don’t want to worsen it but I’m sure I can probably squat 280 at least next workout without problems.

I am doing a LP currently with 10 lbs added every time I get 3x5. That’s usually every workout or every second workout. Maybe this Progression was too fast.

For the training environment I have a plan. We’ll probably build our own indoor gym in December.

I thank you very much for your suggestion. I’ll manage the pain the next days and see if it’s completely gone, then I’ll squat normal or if it isn’t I’ll decrease the weight as you said.

A herniation in the absence of things like foot drop, atrophy, fasciculations, bowel and bladder problems, etc does not change the approach to recovery. Having sciatic-related shooting pains down the back of your leg is not a red flag or something that inherently changes how you would approach the rehab situation from a loading strategy standpoint. If it is a bad herniation it just means you have to start back at even lighter weights. I think 10lbs jumps is probably too much too soon too fast. If you do take the above advice I would probably start taking the 5 lb jumps when you get back around 250ish. What I typically see happen here is people not backing off a bit, then having a really bad exacerbation, and then stopping training for a while and feeling like they need to see a doctor because the pain is bad, and then eventually starting to train again in 6 months to a year. Now that you know the cycle hopefully you can avoid it. Good luck!

Thanks for the clarification.

I’ll back off and go up slower the next time.

You're welcome!