Hi team,
I’m running the low back pain template (really appreciating the slow and steady build in Phase 2) and I have a handful of questions for you.
I’m finding quite a lot of differences between the iPhone app and the spreadsheet. You always say to trust the spreadsheet so I’m doing that (I have v2.2, appears to be the newest), but can you confirm that’s what I should do? I’ll list a bunch of the differences below as a starting point if you’re able to fix them in the app.
For the Phase 2 rehab exercises: I’m doing hip extensions by holding a dumbbell and leaning over the barbell in the rack, which seems to work ok, but I’m struggling with the others. 1. For goblet squat good mornings (which I’m assuming are just goblet good mornings, right? I can’t find anything specifically called goblet squat good morning), once I get to a 50lb dumbbell, my puny arms can’t hold it well when leaning over during the rep. Should I switch to the bar, or is there a reason goblet is preferred? FWIW, my hamstring flexibility is a joke, so my ROM is pretty short and requires a fair bit of knee bend.
2. Similarly, for glute bridges, I can’t go above 80lbs because my noodle arms can’t get more than a 40lb dumbbell into place on top of each hip. Plus, I’m already hip thrusting more than twice that weight – is this exercise different enough to even bother? If so, what’s the trick to loading it to get to RPE 8? After Phase 2, I’m supposed to go up to 4 days a week in Phase 3. I’m not completely opposed to that (though my wife may be!), but my injury occurred during Phase 3 of the beginner program (following 6 months of SS NLP
Adstads,
Yep, goblet squat good mornings are good mornings done with the weight in front of you. It is a placeholder for folks who are still quite sensitive and unable to load themselves with a traditional good morning. If you can do a regular or SSB good morning (my fav), I’d do that instead.
For the glute bridges, I’d do them 1-sided, and/or with a pause, and/or just swap over to more hip thrusts. All of those changes would work.
I do think the 3rd phase of the LBP template is a good bridge into whatever you do next. We did the extra frequency to incorporate some extra movements for the low back and trunk. Should be good if you can swing it with your schedule!
-Jordan
Jordan,
Thanks, and sorry – somehow the 2nd half of my post disappeared. I had gone through every day of the first 8 weeks and flagged a bunch of differences between the app and the spreadsheet for you. I’ll try to do it again soon if it would be helpful (it was pretty time-consuming or else I’d do it now!).
You got the gist of my last question despite it getting cut off mid-sentence. The point was I was concerned about 4 day volume being too much for me since I was on a 3-day program before injury and then detrained for 6 months after the injury before I was able to find an entry point to get back to lifting (I did walk and run throughout that period). Unless that extra info changes anything in your mind, I’ll just do Phase 3 as you suggest.
The final 2 things I tried to ask, that completely vanished:
- Before I got hurt, I had planned to go on to PB1 after finishing the beginner program. After the rehab template, would it make sense to do that, or should I go back to the Beginner Template and do some or all of that first?
- The injury was a giant pop on a paused deadlift that clobbered me for 6 months of radiating pain, so I’m anxious about getting back to paused and heavy deadlifts of any kind (though I pulled 205lbsx2x8 today without pain, so things are definitely progressing). Derek described it as “an instance where I would definitely slant towards the ‘bio-’ mattering a bigger deal” (on the biopsychosocial continuum, I believe). Given that, is there anything special you recommend for returning to those movements without reinjuring? Otherwise, I’m just working up slowly and listening to any pain – but I guess what’s scary is there wasn’t any pain at all until the pop!
Thanks again. Really appreciate your help!
Adstads,
I don’t see an issue jumping into PB I after the LBP template. There’s nothing I would specifically recommend, no. I do think that conservatively loading your pulls, which should be varied, would be the move. If we can agree that your injury was mostly due to bad luck rather than a clear, predisposing factor or set of factors, I think there’s not much else to be done to prevent it. Just my 0.02!
-Jordan
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