I’ve had chronic back pain for god knows how long now. Most of the time it’s manageable. Low-bar squats and anything that has me leaning over seem to aggravate it, so I mostly stick to high-bar squats and front squats. My main focus is on weightlifting movements (clean and jerk, snatch) over powerlifting ones, so I prefer high-bar and front squat anyway.
Now, I need to go on a tangent, so bear with me.
During quarantine, when my gym was closed, I was doing kettlebell swings at home and for some demented reason decided to experiment with my perfectly good stance. I turned my feet excessively outward (almost to the point of being completely sideways) and widened my stance. After a few swings, I felt a sharp pain in my knees, but I continued swinging anyway becaue I’m dumb.
Long story short, three months later my knees still hurt, and my Doc said that my MRI shows signs of patellar tendonitis and popliteus tendonitis.
Because of my knee pain, I can’t front squat or high-bar squat, or even squat, so I turned to stiff-legged deadlifts because they require minimal knee flexion.
I usually pull with a somewhat wide stance, because I have flat-back syndrome (where my spinal curvature is nearly zero) and have trouble maintaining a neutral spine without widening my stance for deadlifts – most likely due to a combination of my flat back and my hip anatomy. Due to my damaged knees, however, any pulling in a wide stance hurt. So I decided to pull with a narrow stance. Pulling in a narrow stance has always given me back pain in the past, but I was so hungry to work out and lift SOMETHING so I dismissed that concern.
A few reps in at just 135, I felt this dull, non-specific ache all throughout my back, so I stopped. I’d been out of the gym for two months, so my back muscles have significantly weakened, which is what I attributed the pain to. Two days later, I decided to try again, and felt okay. Two days later, I did some more stiff-legged deadlifts and suddenly felt this stabbing pain in my right lower-back, closer to the pelvic bone and near where the SI is.
Now, I’ve had back pain before, but it’s always been manageable and it’s always gotten better through modified loading or rest. This time, however, feels different. A week later, it feels worse than ever. Sitting for prolonged periods aggravates it the most; walking is mostly fine, and when I bend over to pick something up it feels like my upper body is going to disconnect from my lower one.
I’m at a loss as to whether to continue training or just rest. I started out this journey with damaged knees and a functional back that was in pain to a now dysfunctional back in pain combined with damaged knees.
Should I get an MRI? Based on my symptoms, I can’t tell whether it’s a disc problem or an SI problem. The pain sometimes radiates in my buttocks and down both legs. The pain is sharper in the buttocks and a duller, “burning” sensations in the legs. Sometimes I even feel pain in my upper back in sharp, random spots. I’m dying to lift, but am afraid of making the problem worse.
Are benching and overhead pressing okay? All my docs I’ve been to have just told me to rest and sent me home with NSAID prescriptions.
I’m scared, because the back pain has never been this bad, and doctors haven’t helped me or given me any advice as to how to return to normal function and lifting.
I know that was probably long and rambling. Sorry, and thanks in advance.
- Felix