Hi everyone!
I’ve been lifting for 5 years now and powerlifting for over 3 years. I’ve dealt with minor injuries and strains all the time but I’ve always been able to push through them and still train at my fullest. On a Sunday about two weeks ago while I was meal prepping I felt a painful pull and burning sensation in my left lat. Instantly I ripped off my shirt and tried to see any bruising but there was none there, for the rest of the day the bottom two inches of my lat was very sore and if I flexed my lat I would feel a pull. I wrote this off as a cramp/minor strain and thought nothing of it really. So for reference I’m running Powerbuilding I - 2nd Gen 4 day template. The next day (Monday), I low bar squatted with no pain, bench pressed with no pain and did accessories with no pain, including single arm cable rows which I found very interesting. The next day (Tuesday) I had conventional deadlifts for ascending sets of 4, I had minor pain at the lockout but nothing serious, I capped myself at 425 lbs at rpe 7 for my topset and did one backdown set. Thursday I high bar squatted and touch n go bench pressed with no pain. Friday is when the pain on deadlifts became more intense, I was warming up for halting deadlifts and on 315 I felt another pulling sensation so I stopped deadlifting for the day. Fast forward to today (Tuesday) I tried conventional deadlifting again and only got 405 lbs for 3 reps because the pain was very intense at lockout. Off the floor is fine, at my knees is fine, I feel the pain when my legs are locked and I’m bringing my shoulders back to lockout fully. At this point I’m not even sure it is a lat injury, I just need some guidance to what the injury could be and any rehab tips. Thanks!
TLDR: “Lat” pain when locking out on deadlifts but perfectly fine when doing back accessories
Yea, that’s an interesting one. Seems like the pain is load related given that’s only with deadlifts. As far as what “it” is, it’s not immediately clear to me what it is. A lat strain is certainly on the differential, but I can’t be certain from here..or really diagnose someone via a forum.
As far as what to do about this, I think it’s reasonable to modify deadlift programming to something that is more tolerable. I’d be skipping single-rep efforts and likely adding a tempo component to the deadlifts to reduce load. I’d also likely be including some direct training, e.g. archer rows, tempo pull ups, carries, though I’d want to assess an individual before giving them specific advice. That’s what we do in our consultations, anyway 
If you’re up for DIY’ing it, that’s fine with me. If you need more specific help, please reach out via support@barbellmedicine.com and we’ll get you sorted.
Hi Jordan,
Just wanted to give you an update. Yesterday I tried to do halting deadlifts again. For reference I pull mixed grip on conventional deadlifts and my lat pain is on the side with my mixed grip. When I was warming up on deadlifts yesterday I could feel the pain in my lower lat so I switched the side of my mixed grip and I could deadlift completely painless. With this added information does it narrow down what injury I could have and are there any different exercises you could recommend for rehab? I did do tempo pull ups and I didn’t feel my lat strain at all which makes me even more confused.
It seems like I have a workaround for my injury at the moment, but I would like to be completely injury free and return to my normal mixed grip deadlift technique.
Thanks!
While it is certainly encouraging that your pain has improved, I can’t say this added information helps me come up with a more confident diagnosis.
As far as next steps, we have a number of resources for general guidance, here, here, and here. For your individual case, I think a consultation would be useful to you in order to get back to unrestricted training.