I am a non competitive athlete. I have been using barbell medicine templates now for about 2 years. I really using the templates at the moment. Unfortunately I have been getting lower back soreness/pain ever since starting The Bridge, 2 years ago. I also get back tweaks 2-3 times a year. Normally resolve in 1 week.
I typically experience most of the soreness and pain outside of the gym. It’s worse in the mornings. Where I struggle the most. I have been getting the morning soreness now everyday for at least 6 months. On rare occasions it wakes me up in the night.
On separate occasions. I am completely fine, but when I participate in an activity I suddenly feel sore. These activities include going for a run, house cleaning/chores or moving various objects- that aren’t anywhere near as heavy as what I lift in the gym.
In the gym. I am usually fine. If there is soreness, it is normally alleviated during warm up sets.
The only time I struggle in the gym, is when I have a tweak. Which takes about a week to resolve. Although I feel they are getting worse each time.
I am quite fed up with the soreness now. It’s having a serious impact on my everyday life. I train to improve my health. At the moment it feels like I’m slowly making it worse.
My training history includes running various BBM templates. I have bought about 8.
Do you have any recommendations for me? I would appreciate any advice you can give me.
At the moment I have stopped doing conventional DLs and low bar squats. Replaced with high bar and trap bar respectively.
I can empathize with this experience. I’m that middle-aged guy who has gotten back into training after taking a half decade off. I’ve now built my deadlift up to 500 lbs, so I’m not doing too badly. I work in an office and whenever I do any manual labor or sport, my lower back becomes fatigued more quickly than I’d like. Though, I would describe the sensation differently than you. I feel it as fatigue or almost like my lower back muscles are pumped out (think how your biceps feel after doing 100 curls). I’ve read other forum threads on this phenomenon and the advice has been, if you have a big day of lawn work and need to workout that same day, workout first. For me, the sensation dissipates quickly if I sit down and rest for a few minutes. Like you, this doesn’t impact my workouts. I don’t experience this as an injury, I’ve always thought of it as a reinforcement that I’ve gained muscle adapted specifically to powerlifting.
As I’ve gained LBM, I also cramp more than I used to. I visited some friends a few months back and they have this super tiny bathroom with the toilet paper located back by the tank. The cramp I experienced in my lats/back due to the necessary gymnastic twisting around I needed to employ to grab some paper almost killed me (and disappeared as soon as I turned back around).
I have always imagined that if I did more cardio, this issue with my lower back getting fatigued would get better. My ability to garden is under-trained! I definitely don’t do enough cardio. Curious to see what they say here.
Same, I’m struggling with a similar issue I posted here a while ago. Feel great when I do not go to the gym - but obviously this is a bad idea long term. I train only for health also but feel like I’m messing my back up every time I’m back from the gym, even though I am performing things like deadlifts and squats perfectly fine with a load I am capable of doing. Just pain and more pain, doctors and physio therapists are sure my back is 100% healthy. Just sick of the after gym pain. Incidentally as you guys have mentioned, I do not do much cardio either, going to give that a go and see if it helps, along with longer warm ups and post training static stretches.