Repeated Low Back Injuries

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
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Hey guys,

I re-injured my lower back for the second time last night. This requires a little back story… I initially got injured around late August on a 345lb deadlift. The sensation was pretty much exactly like Alan Thrall describes in his video on injuring his back deadlifting - a couple pops from my lumbar spine. I didn’t have any “red flag” symptoms - radiation, tingling, numbness, etc., but any kind of bending over or rounding of the back caused pain. I saw a sports med doc who essentially told me it’s probably nothing serious, and I should keep training, and let pain be my guide for what I should do. I could do most movements at a lighter weight with no pain except the deadlift, so that’s what I did, but it was only improving marginally as far as day-to-day pain and stiffness. I was squatting around 335 at that point, but was having issues with depth so I decided to deload to correct that.

I deloaded back to 275 and made my way up to 295 in five-pound jumps. I actually felt great at this point, like the deload had really helped recovery. I was then on my second set at 295 and driving up out of the bottom when I felt a series of 5-7 pops in my lumbar spine and fairly intense pain as I finished the rep. The sensation was sort of like an “unzipping” of my spine. Not good. I remembered Alan Thrall’s video and immediately started walking around, foam rolling, and doing some air squats. I was able to prevent it from totally locking up but was done lifting for the day. I took ibuprofen (6-800mg 4-5x/day for 4 days or so) and got in the gym for my next scheduled workout, but deloaded my squat to 185 - the most weight I could do without pain, and wore a belt.

I worked my way back up, making 10-pound jumps on the squat and deadlift, and my back actually felt OK. I continued to have a good deal of tightness after working out and the occasional twinge of pain, but it was slowly improving. I continued the SSNLP program and made some great progress on my upper body lifts (got my bench to 240 3x5 and my press to 160 3x5). I was in the gym last night and scheduled to squat 255 3x5 and was on my second warmup set of squats at 135 pounds when I reinjured my back again. Not too bad this time, no pops, but 5ish out of 10 pain at time of injury. I foam rolled, did air squats and deadlifts and kept moving so it didn’t lock up, and was actually able to finish the workout at 135 3x5. I did presses at 145 3x5 and then some very light power cleans 95 5x3.

Today sucks - I am extremely tight and sore. Beyond that, I’m just really, really frustrated. I seem to be in this perpetual cycle of injuries and it’s very discouraging. How do I fix this and get healthy? I used to want to pull 500 but at this point I’d be really happy with just being able to pick my 18lb kid up out of his crib without grimacing in pain.

1 Like
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Sorry to hear about your difficulties. This cycle can indeed be very frustrating from a mental standpoint – I’ve been there before.

Have you ever received any coaching?

What increments are you using in weight when you repeat the LP back up?

When do you wear your belt?

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I received some basic instruction on the squat from a coach at my gym when I was first starting out. I’ve since made some modifications based on guidance in the blue book and some form checks over on Reddit. I’m under the same handle over there if you want to check them out, or I can link in the morning. Same story for the power clean minus the form checks. Other than that, nothing formal.

Most recently I made 10lb jumps when coming back from the second injury. Before that I can’t remember. I’m not very consistent with logging my training.

I wear my belt on my last warm up set and through my work sets for squats and deadlifts. Since the last injury I’ve done the same for the press and bench though that’s not my typical method. I’m wearing a thin 4" leather community belt at the gym. Was not wearing it when the most recent injury occurred but was for the previous 2. Perhaps said belt is cursed.

Thanks.

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I would purchase a real belt, wear it on all your warmup sets, start back lighter, and make smaller jumps in weight on the way up.

You’ll be ok!

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Real belt inbound from rogue, started back at 185 yesterday. Intending to make 5lb jumps this time, but god damn is that a blow to the ego. Oh well, in the long term it won’t matter I guess.

What should I be doing with my upper body lifts in the meantime? Continue to lp? I dropped my bench back to 225 from 240 for my last workout with the intent of prioritizing recovery resources to the injury rather than muscle development. Is that the right approach? Should I just take it easy at moderate weight until my lower body lifts catch back up?

Also the big question… How do I prevent this from happening again? There’s a ton of material on the various starting strength yt channels, podcasts and blogs about how to rehab and the things that don’t work for injury prevention, but what does work?

Thanks for your work in answering these, I know the busy life all too well and honestly have no clue how you find time.

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  1. There is no reason to drop back your bench just to “prioritize recovery resources to the injury rather than muscle development”. Continuing to bench heavy will have no impact on your back situation.

  2. All you can do is train with good technique and intelligent programming. Other than that, there is no way to prevent injuries. Sometimes, things just happen. For that reason, you need to fortify your mindset and expectations for recovery when a setback like this occurs. You’ll be fine.