I have been programming with barbell medicine for about 7 months. I can say my strength has increased on the squat, deadlift, and bench press. I finished the 4 day hypertrophy program about 3 weeks ago. As I was finishing the last week of the hypertrophy program I started feeling unusually fatigued and some pain in my lower back area. I am trying to understand if this pain could have developed through inappropriate percentages of rpe throughout the seven week hypertrophy program.
After week 7 my pain started to increase and eventually turned into persistent low back pain. The pain is noticeable at a certain weight on the bar. I am performing the squat and deadlift with significantly less weight now. I am following the performing until tolerance advice. On the very bright side, my bench and press have not been affected at all and my strength has improved in those lifts.
I find this pain very tricky to handle because, I feel pain when I squat a certain weight at or below parallel. I feel pain when I deadlift a certain weight at the very beginning when I push off the floor. I wanted to get an idea of the most appropriate way to train with persistent low back pain, as in reps and sets. Would be cool if barbell medicine would have a back rehab template.
Sorry to hear about this. We have a low back template in the works.
Regarding moving forward, what are you experiencing regarding symptoms? How old are you? Has this happened previously? Are you able to squat with a particular amount of weight on your back with tolerable symptoms and full range of motion? What about deadlifting, can you deadlift from the ground with a particular weight with tolerable symptoms?
What’s programming look like currently?
Finally, what are your thoughts about the symptoms you are experiencing?
As far as symptoms I do not have any numbness or swelling. I believe I only have pain in my lower back and the pain feels like a stabbing one. I do not have any issues with my lower back when I am walking or moving around. However, the pain would be very noticeable the next morning after I have squatted and or deadlifted the day before. I will add that eventually the pain from the next and the next morning did lessen when I squatted or deadlifted with a “tolerable weight”.
I am 26 years old and this is the first time this has happened to me. I am definitely able to squat full ROM and deadlift from the floor with a particular weight. It has been been 3 weeks since this pain appeared. Since then I been trying to see what is tolerable weight. I will admit the first week and a half I did not want to accept it and did not make matters better for myself.
I am taking a similar approach from the hypertrophy program but with a “tolerable weight” for my programming. I do not know if that’s the best way to go about the programming, but that’s what I am doing for now.
Ex: day 1
Squat
2x12@45 lbs
1x5@135lbs
1x5@185lbs
1x6@ 225lbs belt
3x6@ 235lbs belt
Press with belt
1x6@ 110lbs
2x6@ 115lbs
3x6@ 125lbs
flat dumb bell press
4x15@70
Day 2
deadlift no belt
1x10@135
6x6 @185
pause bench
1x6@ 190lbs
2x6@ 205lbs
3x6@ 215lbs
high bar squat no belt
2x12@ 45lbs
3x15@ 135lbs
My initial thoughts about this pain were that it will go away without lowering the weight a lot. I have lowered the weight a lot more in the deadlift than the squat. I noticed the pain wasn’t going to go away that easily. Now I am trying to train the best I can without pain. I believe I am feeling better with training until tolerance. I believe I will get better but patience is something I need to work with alot
more.
Gotcha. Thanks for the additional information. Without a consult, it’s difficult to give individualistic advice. However, the premise shift needs to occur to likely progress forward - you are training to return to baseline prior to this issue and NOT training to make a performance goal improvement (strength, hypertrophy, etc.). Making this mental shift will help out a lot to embrace the process. The other expectation should be symptoms will likely be a part of this process but shouldn’t severely increase during or after a session, if they are then I recommend further regulating external loading by adding in tempo work for sensitized movements (slow eccentric specifically) and you can increase rep ranges as well. Keep us posted on how things progress. If you need individual help, we’d be happy to consult with you: Contact Us | Barbell Medicine.
Overall, it sounds like now that you’ve accepted your current situation - you are on the right track.