I’ve been running a high-volume powerlifting program, following power building I, and recently tweaked my low back. I assume it was just too much volume, as I couldn’t identify any traumatic event associated with the pain. I’m 2 weeks out from the injury, but immediately after the injury I watched the Thrall video on low back injuries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riq-DfDDimc) and tried to basically mirror his progression. Week 1 I dropped the volume and worked back up to lifting at about an RPE 8 without a big increase in symptoms. Then I took a 12-hour flight, spent a week hiking and doing other outdoor activities (no barbell training), and took a second 12-hour flight. After the second flight, I was in a lot more pain than even right after the injury. I’m doing weight/volume I’d normally do on a deload week this week, but I’m wondering what I should try next. For context, I’m going to be doing a long-planned week-long road/camping/hiking trip in 6 weeks (June 28th) and I’m worried that will reaggravate it. Also, I’ll lose gym access for about a month in about 4-5 weeks (the road trip is part of a move).
Should I start the low back rehab template knowing I can only do 4-5 weeks of it? Any suggestions? I really want to nip this in the bud to prevent it from becoming persistent.
Hey, thanks for the questions and sorry to hear about your situation. I don’t recommend starting the template given your travel plans. Instead, perhaps you can adjust dosage of activity as outlined HERE. Then see how the situation progresses in the coming weeks. If you return back to a normal gym schedule and the situation hasn’t improved to your expectations, then it is reasonable to start the LBP template to help find an entry point back into resistance training. We’d also be happy to consult with you to give some individual recommendations.
This is very helpful, thank you! I’ll definitely drop the weight well below what I normally lift and bump reps into the 8-12 range per the recommendations in the article. I was thinking I might just run either bridge or Powerbuilding I with higher rep ranges (8-12) and obviously lower RPE levels as I rebuild capacity and decrease pain since I’ll be lifting well below my ability. Would that be crazy?
That would be fine as a backbone for a program. I don’t know that I would volitionally lower the RPE but instead of anchoring it to “could” you do 2 more reps I would anchor it to “should” you do two more reps. This tends to give a little larger margin of error.
That’s super helpful, thank you! Last follow up: I’d like to take ibuprofen as I’m rehabbing, but will that just mask the pain and therefore undermine my ability to determine whether the lifts are too heavy? My concern is that if I wasn’t taking ibuprofen my symptoms might be getting worse but since I am they’re staying the same/improving. Is that a problem?