Lower back pain to the side, radiates down anterior upper thigh

[beastraje]

Hi everyone,
I am on the NLP, 23 y/o male, 96kg. Squat last workout was 125kg, deadlift 132kg (still trying to fix step 4 of the setup).
I did my last good workout on 8th October. Did squats (link here), had a bit of soreness in the lower back, not at an alarming level by any means.
Then when I did my deadlifts, someone interrupted my set at the first rep, I got pissed off and did 6 reps afterwards (stupid).
During the deadlift set, I had some pain in my abductors (right near the hip, on the lateral right side). Not too much, but discomforting. Gutted through it and finished the set.
The pain increased slowly however, and after about 15 mins the back was quite sore, hurt the most sitting down (which I have to do for a long time due to my work).
It hurts mainly on the right side of my lower back, and on the front side of my thigh. Sometimes it radiates down to the mid of the tibia on the right anterior side.
Pain level is not much, just irritates me constantly.

In the last week I recovered well, so I did some lighter squats yesterday, was able to go up to 110kg (100, 100, 110). Little or no pain during the workout. Same for the deadlift.
However, post workout the pain came back (made worse by sitting down in the night). Today I am nearly fine again.

I am quite confused, the radiating pain seems like a nerve issue, but pain level isn't much and I don't want to stop working out. Due to the (man made) pandemic, I can't go to a doctor, because obviously thats where you die of COVID.
He anyway will tell me to stop working out. So could you folks please help me with this? Should I keep working out, or take another week off? Is there some rehab exercise I should do?

Thanks!

[Nick D'Agostino]

I would just keep training and stay lighter for few weeks. This is most likely going to completely work itself out over the course of a month if you don't rush it. Practically this means to start your squat back at 90 and deadlift back at 100, do them 2x/week adding 5 kilos each time your train until you are back to 115 squat and 125 deadlifts. Then start making the jumps smaller.

[beastraje]

I thought this post wouldn't make it through the review given the ubiquitous nature of low back pain. In the meanwhile I found Dr. Morris' video "Training with low back pain". It was quite comforting to know that almost all low back injuries can be trained through.
I highly recommend the video to anyone else scrolling through!

However, I was not sure of how much, and how soon. So I messed around a bit, and each time it did get slightly worse post excercise. However, now I am taking 5 continuous days of no training.

Practically this means to start your squat back at 90 and deadlift back at 100, do them 2x/week adding 5 kilos each time your train until you are back to 115 squat and 125 deadlifts. Then start making the jumps smaller.

Thank you coach! Will reset as you recommend.
Should I do 3 sets of 5 as I was doing prior to the injury?
For future reference, should one wait till the pain level is almost negligible to start the reset?

[Nick D'Agostino]

You're welcome! You can do 3 sets of 5 on squat and 1-2 sets of 5 on deadlift.

I would not wait until the pain level is almost negligible before starting again. I would probably wait 2-3 days and then just try to find an entry point that is tolerable to start again.

[Frank_B]

I get a mild version of this sometimes. I have a pretty badass massage therapist who will dig her heel into parts of my psoas muscle. It always seems to help. It’s arguably worse than a piriformis massage, and she says there are arguments in the massage community over whether you can access that muscle, but it has always helped me.

[beastraje]

Hey guys, just wanted to say thanks! I followed the rehab prescription above and am quite normal now.
I was really not sure how much of a backoff is necessary, and did some weird workouts that were quite close (in weight) to the workout prior to the injury.
This actually made things worse, as I wrote above. So, thanks a lot for taking the time and giving me specific numbers/routine to follow. I guess the takeaway is to backoff a bit more than you'd want to, and NOT do the Starr protocol for back injuries .
On the other hand, the several SSCA lectures that drilled in the fact that back pain is common were useful to make me quit being a whining bitch and get under the bar while I was waiting on the response above. Thank you for putting them on youtube for free.

[Nick D'Agostino]

You're welcome! I'm glad you found the advice helpful.