Male, 23, 5’11, 209 pounds, 38 inch waist, running Beginner Template at week 4.4
Close to two years ago I tweaked my lower back doing deadlifts, felt a little pop in my lower back near my hip line. I was told I likely aggravated or sprained a facet joint by a chiropractor (not impossible). I didn’t give myself enough time to heal and did close to my working weights just a few days later and did the same thing again. After that I worked with a PT for a little bit and got some coaching on form, felt better in a few weeks.
Ever since then I’ve had off and on cycles of feeling tightness, stiffness, sometimes very mild pain, coming from that same spot, at the hip line to the right of the spine, around where the SI joint is. I’m able to lift through it and often feel better when I do. This is what I’ve been experiencing for a couple weeks, after I went a little too hard on squats coming back from a break. And lately I’ve felt my lower back getting fatigued way easier on the low bar squat, especially on the higher rep (7-10) sets. Not really pain, just tight and fatigued.
I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong in the squat, and I’ll post a video below of my last heavy set of 4 from this week, don’t have any videos of my higher rep sets. It might also be worth mentioning that my left hip is a lot more flexible than my right hip, from a long time of unequal stretching.
What could be the cause of this lingering sensitivity/pain? Am I doing anything wrong in the squat to contribute to this? Is my squatting the cause of my low back fatigue or is it related to the lingering sensations from those previous injuries?
Hey Spartan040 - sorry to hear about your persistent symptoms. We obviously can’t give individual advice without a consultation. If you are interested, please complete our intake paperwork HERE for a remote consultation. The squat video looked fine.
I recommend listening to our podcast on low back pain HERE and reading our article, Pain in Training: What do? for general advice in these scenarios.
