Blew my lower back in January during squats, was getting better. Sneezed yesterday, now we’re basically back in January again pain-wise and mobility-wise. Do I just restart my rehab plan from scratch in this scenario?
Typical rehab for me is some blend of Mckenzie, Mcgill and cardio until powerlifting movements can be incorporated safely into my training regimen again.
Side question: If I’m experiencing multiple relapses in pain (2-3 times a year), is that a sign that I’m jumping my gun too quickly in regards to training or that my lower back is just weak as hell/damaged.
Really internalize that info. Take “damaged” out of your vocabulary for the time being. Pain and “tweaks” are not uncommon and these should become less debilitating and less frequent over time. Powerlifting movements can be done “safely” during tweak times. Adjust load and volume until you can do the movements without significantly increasing pain post workout (2-24h later), and increase from there.
I’d start with that. I occasionally get a back pain flare-up, similar in severity to an initial injury from years ago. But, with improved knowledge in this area, I’ve learned some things that keep the duration of this pain very short. Don’t catastrophize - hurt does not equal harm, and you may have no “damage” at all. Keep doing your power lifting movements from the get go, but you’ll likely need to significantly modify them, either with much lighter weights, or limiting the range of motion (half squats instead of full), or by substituting an adjacent exercise (split squats) until you can incrementally get back to normal. A bit of increased pain during exercise is fine, but it shouldn’t be too much or last too long. Get sleep, keep doing those other exercises, use some hot packs, and know that you are very likely to be just fine in no time.
A friend of mine fell from a great height a week ago and hit him hard in the chest area. He seems to be fine now, without any fractures. But there’s a problem with the other one. Most likely, the bump somehow affected the heart muscle and he now has a constant discomfort in the chest area. As the doctors told him he has heart problems and a nerve in his back. Is that even possible? Is it possible to get heart problems from a simple bump? Or is it more likely that these problems were just not being reported. And then, so to speak, the opportunity came up. And he was even prescribed lisinopril and a couple of other heart medications. On top of that, he will now be overpaying for drugs because he doesn’t have insurance. Who knew this would happen. Who knows how much is lisinopril without insurance? So I’m thinking maybe he should change doctors and go somewhere else for a consultation. What do you think?