22 y/o herniated disk

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

Hello, Coach, first of all big fan. Loved your aches and pains article.

i have searched google for all your forums regarding a herniated disk and read them all. They certainly helped a lot.

i have herniated my disk and my personal trainer said no gym for a month, and will also go to physiotherapist on Tuesday.

from your experience how long and how complicated is the process is returning back to the gym? Are there any exercises that i should do to speed up the recovery? I tried moving the first week, air squats, air deadlifts, got significantly better, no pain getting up from the bed and so on but for the second week went back into gym, started doing 25kg deadlifts, 20kg squats, good mornings, some chest, upper back exercises and it instantly felt worse, the pain started to come back, and felt like the pain i had 48h after the initial injury.

btw injury happened while squatting, at the bottom of the squat, pretty sure i buttwinked.

summary

-injury happened 2 weeks ago
-first 48 lots of pain, kept moving though
-during the first week lots of walking, air deadlifts/squats, low weight Romanian deadlifts
-2nd week got back into gym, did chest/shoulders exercises that did not involve lower back much. Did deadlifts/squats w empty barbell
-end of 2nd week did DL w 25kg n squats w empty barbell, some chest exercises and upper back (face pulls)
-trough out the second week the pain kept coming back and end of the week it was as bad during first 72 h after the injury, pain radiating trough both of the legs came back as well, even when resting

  • will go to a physical therapist in 2 days (start of 3rd week after the injury)

any help is appreciated, and i will totally get it if you decide not to reply, though will try my luck anyway…

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I’ll add my two cents as I’ve been in your situation and due to bad advice from HCPs, ended up in a pretty nasty cycle.

First up, as leg pain is bilateral, I definitely think it’s wise for you to be reviewed by a qualified health professional so they can check for red flags and rule-out things that require immediate medical management.

If air squats and air deadlifts were ok but 20kg/25kg squats and deadlifts potentially caused a flare-up, it may be that the load progression was too rapid (even though it may not seem so). You could maybe try going back to the air squats and add a tempo component or pauses to make them somewhat challenging (5 secs up, 5 secs down air squats are pretty brutal to be fair). You could also add in some single leg work such as split squats or lunges. The “flare-up” may be completely normal as the rehab process is rarely linear.

As far as “buttwink” goes, I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless it’s a symptomatic movement, in which case you could temporary avoid the painful range of movement. Once things have calmed down, you can then start to train through that range again.

This article is a really good resource

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