Nagging low back pain from deadlifting

All,

About a month ago, I had to switch gyms. At my old gym, I was deadlifting on a pretty flexible Eleiko weightlifting bar. It was super comfortable, I hit a 500lb pull at 30lbs lower body weight than the year before. Then when I switched, I had to move temporarily to a crappy globogym on a very crappy bar.

About 2 weeks after I made this switch, I started noticing sharp stabbing pain in my left hip / low back area around my SI joint. It’s usually terrible the day after deadlifting, but tends to lighten up enough by the next week that I can pull again and the pain starts over again. Yesterday I backed the weight off by about 10% for sets of 5. First two sets felt ok, last set hurt on the last rep. Today it’s painful to stand up straight.

The only changes that have occurred in my training have been switching from a whippy bar to a stiff bar, and i switched from pulling in chucks to pulling in nike metcons. Is it possible that the sudden but slight switch in pulling position aggravated my back? It just feels like my pull from the floor isn’t as comfortable as it was previously.

My current plan is to switch to rack pulls below the knee for a while and see if that makes the pain subside, then if that works, move back to the floor at lighter weights and gradually move back up.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

Thanks,

Chewie

Hi Chewie, I think that sounds like a fine plan. I don’t think you need to be doing anything else on top of that. Have you been able to work through that this week, and if so, how’s it been feeling?

As for the reason why your back was aggravated, hard to say if it was just the different bar that was the sole factor. It’s possible you were training in a different position, but that’s usually not a set reason for pain, since most training programs (in addition slight changes in movement/position day to day, week to week) have variability built into it. Are you running any particular program right now?

so, weirdly enough, I didn’t even have to stop deadlifting. I backed the weight off and decided to switch back to pulling in my squat shoes with a 0.75" heel and it felt amazingly better. the pull felt easier, more comfortable. kept it at 3x5 at 365, then last week 4x5 at 365 across… and now i’m pain free. weird, but it worked. So, i’m going to keep pulling in heels going forward. I have no idea why this helps but it does.

i’ve been running the Titan template lately, but modified the pulling to adjust to the pain issue. Now i’m resuming more regular training volume this week.

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