Pulled this at work. I’ve been trying to push through it for a few weeks now. I can do the deadlifts but it tweaks it so bad I don’t want to do anything all day. And rack pulls I can’t even do because it seems to use too much back. I’m on end of week 4 of the bridge 2.0. A bit defeated… Any suggestions? Thank you.
Does a belt help? I also don’t quite get how rack pulls use “too much back”, while you can pull from the floor.
Can you pull sumo? RDLs?
Belt helps a tad. And not saying rack pulls necessarily use “more back”. But it pulls the spot on my back more so than deadlifts. I can’t rack pull 135 without it throbbing
i’ll give sumo a try. Thanks Austin
Hi Mattnfe, I know exactly what you mean by “too much back”. Firstly, worth noting, I’ve suffered from right thoracic spasms on and off for some years and have recently been working to improve mobility and back strength to correct for the “desk jockey” posture.
Last Friday while training, I suffered the exact sort of intercostal strain you are talking about (in my case, confined to the right side). The muscles were spasming so severely, I had difficulty sitting up straight to drive home from the gym. Since then I’ve trained a couple of times with varying success - squats were sort of ok, bench was excellent, but anything pulled up off the floor was basically impossibly painful.
Today was the same SSLP program as last Friday, and what do you know, spasms. What was different though is that I took more notice of when it started - it was more obvious this time - during the squat. I recorded one of the sets because it felt all wrong and yep, it was all over the place - not close to deep enough, tilting forward into the bottom. Partly this was fear that the set would cause the issue (which perhaps is what caused it to repeat anyway).
During the press, the spasms hurt to take a deep enough breath to brace, but curiously by the 5th rep had settled down somewhat. Each first press in the working set was worse than the first. I skipped the deadlift this time altogether since picking 5lb up off the ground was “too much back” to do without pain.
Today, rather than simply go home at that point, I continued on with the accessory work I’ve been doing (chin ups, dips, face pulls, pull downs and rows) and if anything, these helped to damp down the spasming. Felt better after this than at the beginning! Note that none of these involved any pulling up from the floor.
Cheers,
Glen