Today I was finishing up my rack pulls. I’m doing the Bridge, currently on week 4. At the end of the second-to-last set, 7 reps @ RPE 9, when I set the bar down on the blocks on the last rep I had a crack and sharp sensation in my low back. Stepping away from the bar it was hard to take the first two steps properly due to my low back. I can’t tell for sure, neither then nor now, if it actually was painful or just shocking. I sat down and rested for about 4 minutes and went to do my last set, also 7@9. Naturally I was quite scared from the last set, and while I got the weight of the ground I cancelled my rep immediately. I lowered the weight from 117.5 kg to 100 kg and finished the set.
Walking home from the gym I had no pain in my back but it felt off and I still had some concerned thoughts in my head. Listening to what the BBM crew has to say about peoples perception and expectations of pain, together with the fact that I could complete a set at a lower weight, I’m sure I’m not actually injured or hurt. However, this will surely be in my mind in two days when I go to the gym again and do some pulls and squats. Thus, I’ve some questions:
How can I help myself understand that I’m not hurt?
How can I avoid mental blocks preventing me from lifting in fear of getting injured?
Should I care about this at all? It has never before happened to me, and I’ve no history of back injury.
Hey Simon, I don’t know that I can answer any specific questions you have other than to tell you that what you are experiencing is normal, I have had a similar experience with the deadlift myself, I would tell you to warm up to what you feel comfortable with and see how you feel, it might take some time to get back to where you were, but I think everyone on the forum who has lifted regularly has had a particular lift and weight that was a mental block for whatever reason where it be injury occurred at that level or just one you couldn’t get past. Everything you described sounds good, let us know how it goes
Hey @rzmd - sorry to hear about the recent low back symptoms. How have you been managing since the OP?
Keith gave some solid advice already. It’s important to remember that pain is a normal part of life and what matters most is how we respond to the experience.
Experiencing low back pain is a common symptom and most at some point in their life will have a similar experience. This isn’t said to remove the weight of your personal experience but rather to normalize the situation.
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You will need to self-re-assure which includes changing your own mental narrative. We can help with that from the information in the above podcast but you have to work at changing your own narrative on the matter. Staying active and confronting your fears will help with that.
It’s rather difficult to “not care” about pain given it’s premise is attentional focus, often for self-protection but shifting your mindset about the meaning of pain will help silence some catastrophic thinking. Keep us posted.
Things have been going well since my initial post. I’ve yet to do any more rack pulls as the Bridge has changed exercises, but I’ve managed to pull from the floor using my normal conventional stance and even paused deadlifts. The paused lifts were initially scary, but I’ve spent some time researching what the BBM crew has to say about pain management and simply continued lifting. I do not think I am/was actually injured, but rather afraid. Thanks for the input and reassurance.
That’s great news, it’s definitely a different scenario reading about the information and when it’s actually you standing there about to pick up the weights, good job working through it