Hello,
First I would like to thank Barbell Medicine for all the amazing information that you all have been putting out. I found you all within the last few weeks and it has been such a motivating and educational platform for me.
I feel as if I need to give some background as this injury has been plaguing me since first year of college. From 2005-2009, I competed in high school weightlifting (Clean + Jerk and Pause Bench), while also doing PL meets during the off season. In 2010, I felt a sharp pain while deadlifting and got evaluated and was told I had a herniated disc. I was also told that I should not Deadlift/squat heavy anymore. This killed my motivation to lift as all I cared about was lifting for the numbers. This made me slowly stop my training for 10 years. I tried to lift here and there throughout the years but within 3 months I always ended up tweaking the back again and stopping.
Now at age 30 and due to COVID, I’ve created a home gym in my garage and started Starting Strength as it what I have always done when I’ve been away. Within a month of the program, I found your videos online (through SS actually and then it brought me here lol) and wow! It became such a motivating force for me as it gave me hope that one day I may be able to lift heavy again and maybe even do another meet in a few years (obviously getting ahead of myself here). I have paid for the Squat form check with Hasaan and he was amazing and great to work with. All in all, there were places I needed to work but it seemed that my squat was okay. We discussed potentially moving away from SS but since my gains were still increasing 5-10 lbs a session I planned on working through the program and stop as soon as I began to stall and immediately either start the bridge or an intermediate program depending on when I stopped.
Today was week 6 of SS, and my squat was feeling good. I had done 2 sets at 210x5 and on my last set I felt a pop when coming out of the hole which caused a warm yet painful feeling to cover my entire lower back. Generally this is where I would have quit before and went and laid in bed for 2 weeks, but after watching so many of your videos I ended up finishing the workout with what I could (Trap Bar Deadlifts instead of Power Cleans, etc). I even managed to be able to squat 95x5 again despite the pain. Now as I’m cooling down the pain is pretty strong (prob 8 on the pain scale) where I cannot lock my left leg when sitting on the floor and my left leg will buckle while walking. At the same time, I feel a little more reassurance since I could to trap bar deadlifts and do a low weight squat with only slight pain.
At this point, I’m devastated, but I don’t want to give up. I was wondering what you all thought would be the best way to move forward. Should I go into Wednesday’s session continuing to try what I did? Should I drop SS and go into the beginner template or the bridge? Should I quit strength training altogether and try to find motivation with hypertrophy programs and decide maybe my back just isn’t suited for lifting heavy? (as if 210 is heavy lol…).
If you have read this, thank you so much for reading my long winded situation. Thank you all for everything you do for the community.
Thank you.