I’ll try to keep this as summarized as possible. This is kind of a long story
Question: (read this as a summary)
I’m on the Beginner Prescription and I’m having trouble deadlifting now because I tweaked my back a bunch of times from bad form the past month. I took a look at the low back pain rehab template but a lot of the substitutions seem unnecessary for me. My back feels fine squatting (besides unracking the bar I think?), benching, and overhead pressing. I’m a bit weary of rows though now with my back and prefer power cleans anyways. What should I do? I messed up quite a bit with my deadlift form but I feel more confident in it now. I can send a form check if needed. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back into doing conventional DL’s for a bit.
Background:
- I have just started the Beginner Prescription today coming from Starting Strength, was on it since roughly late april - early may. I have lifted weights prior to this, on and off for many years.
About a month ago, I tweaked my back after I rounded my back pretty badly doing conventional dl 245 1x5. I felt only a slight pain actually after but the day and then week after that day it happened I got intense back stiffness with little to no pain. I healed a week later for the most part, the stiffness subsided and had no pain. Restarted my lifts according to the “Alan Thrall back pain protocol” (idk how else to call it) and worked my way back up, not to my old PR though.
Tweaked my back again about 1-2 weeks after the initial “major” back tweak of 245 1x5 (so basically about a couple of weeks ago) doing 175 1x5 when I was lifting the bar off the ground too fast, and also the bar would hang out in front of me on the way up past my knees. The bar hanging out in front of me has been a persistent issue. That healed within a few days though.
I then tweaked my back for the third time more recently on 185 1x5 I think because my upper back rounded (bar was hanging like an inch or 2 in front of me probably past my knees on the way up). Got some low back pain but went away after 2 days.
Then finally, a few days ago I did 195 1x5 and I swear I felt perfectly fine and have been, at that point, religiously watching alan’s videos on how to deadlift correctly for the past month. I noticed I always missed the cue of “dragging the barbell up your legs”, but have did fine on preparing the bar by lifting from midfoot, shins to the bar etc ever since before I did my major back tweak. I never have really felt pain while deadlifting, only after I do a set would I feel discomfort/pain. Felt discomfort even with 95 lbs today unfortunately. Attempted to do just the bar RDL’ing and felt some discomfort too so I didn’t deadlift today really.
Before all of this, my deadlift form was probably way worse when I first began lifting again in early May. I didn’t watch any videos on how to deadlift so I actually did some minor tweaks, maybe 2 or 3.
I went to the doctor and I was told it was probably just lower back strain. This was a week after I deadlifted 245 1x5 with bad form.
Summary of background:
- In total, I think I’ve tweaked my back like 5-8 times (kind of lost count now) in the past 3 months to varying degrees of seriousness from usually bad deadlift form or maybe getting too ahead of myself while recovering from tweaking my back from bad deadlift form. Im normally able to recover given some time but I have messed up a bunch of times within a short time span.
Symptoms:
- Stiff lower back, slight lower back pain, sometimes slight middle back pain, and now for the past 2 days weak/tingling right hip and tingling/weakness in part of my right quad when picking things up off the ground. I always feel discomfort now when I have to pick things up off the floor or bend over in general, and its been like this for almost a month now with some days of being relatively fine and then relapsing. My back had some slight pain yesterday, weird hip/quad issue, and now today its mostly just the quad issue. My symptoms aren’t debilitating but its definitely a hindrance to deadlifting normally. Like I said before, I only feel “something” once I finish a set or stand back up I guess.