Returning low back/SI joint pain

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
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At the moment of writing I am feeling frustrated. i have been training for 10+ years and in the past I have been competing in powerlifting. At one point I had an injury so I had to stop competing, but I was hoping for a return to the platform. I am really concistent with training, but every year one or multiple injuries happen and set me back. So I am continues in the ‘building cycle’, but I am not making any real progress. My best total in the -83 weightclass is 600 kilo (620 gym total) and most of the time I am building back to that total and then an injury happens.

Everytime I use the techniques from BBM when I have an injury and most injurys recover after weeks or months. But this results every year in no progress on my total.

i will give an example. In week 2 or 3 of my last 12 week program I started to get a bit of pain and stiffness near my SI joint. This got worse after a few sessions and it hurt when I would unrack or rerack any weight above 100 kilo on the squat. During the squat it self it felt okay.
i squat twice a week and what I did was substitutie my secundaire squat (this was high bar and felt really bad) for an tempo low bar back squat. This loweres the weights and after a few weeks things were going well again.

i restarted this program with the following LB excercises:
day 1
low bar squat
leg extensions

day 2
conventional deadlift
RDL

day 3
safety bar squat
split squat

day 4
sumo deadlift
dumbell RDL

all of the work I did in the first two weeks was between RPE 4 and 7. One topset and 1 or 2 backdown sets. I train with low fatigue programming and I have followed multiple BBM templates, but currently running a program from another low fatigue coaching system.

anyway during week 2 I feit the left side of my lower back again. Just a bit and I could still train. But in week 3 it got worse. I felt it during the unracking of the safety bar squat and I could do a really good topset @RPE 6.5 and 2 back down sets. Later that they my back felt stif and one day later (today) its painfull. I tried to do sumo deadlifts but stoppen during warm uo because It did not fewl good.

so this is why I feel frustrated right now. My next training is in 3 days and I will start squating with a weight that is not painfull and maybe it will be recoveren in a week or so. But honestly I dont know what I need to do from a programming standpunt, I am already training with relative low RPE’s, but things like this keep on happening. I dont want to blame the high bar squat or safety bar squat, but I dont know what lesson I can learn from this.

i also had a shoulder injury for almost a year and it finally went a bit better and know this is happening.

sorry for the long rant and thank you for reading. Hopefully I can receive a bit of guidance.

PSI was working on my new years resolutions and after 5 years I would like to compete again. But I only want to do that if I can break my old PR’s…what to do…

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Sorry to hear about this. It sounds like you have learned as much as you can from our available content, and have done your best to apply it to your situation. From your description it sounds like you experienced a new-onset pain that did not seem to be precipitated by anything in particular, so I am not sure there is specific advice we can give you beyond what we’ve already put out there.

In other words, there isn’t a “secret” or “trick” here that we haven’t publicly discussed that would be applicable to your situation. Given that you have done the best you can trying to self-manage things so far, I think the next best move would be a consultation and potentially working with a professional on this, whether one of our rehab staff or someone else that you trust, whether online or local to you.

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Thank you for your thought, Austin. While I wrote the post I was feeling really frustrated because it had just happened and I was in pain. I had a few days off due to Christmas and I started walking immediately to at least do some kind of movement. Lower body work will be light weight this week, but I expect I can train next week (or the week after) almost like normal again. Well, that is what I hope of course.

Also thank you for your honesty regarding not having any other ‘secrets’ to share. I guess it could be some people are a bit more injury prone then others, but I have to be careful with a thought like this so I do not ‘curse’ myself.

In my area there are no professionals besides physical therapists who will claim some parts of my body/spine are crooked and causing the problems. I don’t think that’s the help I need, but my mind can be changed about this matter. Also I am not sure if only assistance (for example from BBM) can help me at this current point in my lifting career.

What is your advice regarding the way I should proceed?

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It sounds like you’re back to training normally, so I’m not sure you need anything. But if you are interested in guidance for rehab-related issues and do not have anyone local, consulting with our team in these situations would be the best step.

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Well, I am back into training but adjusted the weights a lot. For example I did 7x160 kilo safety bar squat @6.5 when I injured my lower back. And now I do 10x115 kilo, so I will need another 2-3 weeks I think to built everything back up. If my Lower back will allow this ‘quick progress’.

Anyway because injuries on my lower back seem to return way too often, is there something I can do? I think programming is on point, so what other things kan I optimize ? Any ideas?

Edit: Would you recommend a daily protocol like this: 7 Step Lower Back Warmup | Juggernaut Training Systems ?

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Unfortunately don’t have other suggestions for you based on the information available here. I also don’t think a daily warmup sequence like that, done indefinitely, is necessary either. If you find something that makes you feel good, go for it, but there aren’t any magic exercises or warm-up strategies here, unfortunately. If you would like further individualized guidance on your rehab plan or future training, a consult with our rehab team would be a great option.

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Honestly I also do not really believe a daily sequence like that has that much effect or is needed, but you probably understand that having returning lower back issues twice a year is frustrating. Maybe I will contact the rehab team to discuss with them if there is anything I can do in the future to lower the chances of these problems recurring this often.

Regarding the current situation I have bad news. On Monday I squated and this went fine with a bit lower weight then normal. On Tuesday I deadlifted and this also went okay, probably a bit better than expected. After deadlift I wanted to do 2 sets with 120 kilo (about 30-50 kilo lower weight then normal) but during the second set of 10 reps around rep 5 I tweaked my back again. I understand that I should have been more carefull with the training dose, but because squats went so well a day earlier my expectations were more positive.

Yesterday and today my lower back is in more pain than it was 2 weeks ago when I opened this thread about my back tweak that just happened. Yesterday and today rotating and bending is painful and putting my socks on was a real challenge. I lso experience a bit of tingling in my hamstrings. Yesterday I tried to walk a lot and do supported bodyweight squats and deadlifts, I will also to this today. And today or tomorrow I will try to get some squat and block pull movement in with an empty barbell.

I will update within a few days how it is going. I hope to feel improvement in 1-3 days.

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I can relate to a lot of what the OP is going through here. I sounds like you are reluctant to adequately modify your training to the level necessary to desensitize the area. I had a similar experience 6 months ago and got into a cycle of feeling a little better, “testing the waters,” and re-aggravating the issue by doing too much too soon. After banging my head against that wall out of fear of losing hard fought progress, I finally relented and actually committed to changing my training. I had tried all of the other tactics so I shifted my goals to hypertrophy and conditioning. Giving myself a new goal was very helpful psychologically and in reality I will be no worse off for this 18 week foray into bodybuilding and arguably better by concentrating on things that aren’t SBD for a while. I still have grand goals for when This year, but I’ve learned to not be in a rush and find aspects of training that I enjoy.

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With my current low back pain I made the mistake of not dialing back enough weight on all excercises. On squat I started very low and built back up in a few sessions. This was my first time doing RDL again and I was propably extra semsitive for this movenent. I hope the pain gets better within a few days and I will keep on moving my body. I will do squat, deadlift etc with extra low weight for the next sessions or weeks.

The other reason I opened this thread is because I seem to get multiple injuries every year and this has stopped my progress. My training program seems to be good and intensity is low, so why injuries keep coming back is something I can not really get a grip on, but it is frustrating because I want to hit PR’s again and maybe than back on the competition platform.

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Update 14-05-2024

5 months later and unfortunately stil injured. It was getting better in Februari/March and I was increasing the weight, but possible a bit too much so I had to dial back all the weights again.
I have again found an entry point but it is really difficult to progress the right way. At this moment I am squating and deadlifting light and I notice the pain after training is not really getting worse, so that is a good thing. But it also is not getting better for the last few weeks.

Where to go from here…

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Hi,

Sorry to hear about this. I don’t have any new recommendations compared with what has been discussed earlier in the thread, but I would reiterate that if you are struggling to manage this on your own, seeking professional guidance/consultation would be the next best step.

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After just listening to episode 289 twice in a row my conclusion is I understand all points, but I am probably not applying these the right way to my own situation. Either the entry point is not correct or I try to progress quicker than I am capable of and this causes the setbacks/long injury time (or a combination of both).
Honestly I have to admit this is taking a long time and much longer than I would expect.

How can I contact the BBM team to get information about a one time consultation call if that is within the products you guys offer ?

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I’m sorry to hear all of that. That sounds very frustrating! If you are interested I’d love to talk with you more about what’s going on to see if I can offer help. I am a Physical Therpaist and all though you mentioned they may not be helpful it sounds like it’s worth a shot to at least talk with a professional. I agree that without even looking at you nothing is “out of place” that’s not really a thing. Your muscle called quadratus lumborum may be locked up/tight. If interested I’d love to face time with you to see if I can help. No cost, just want to help. I work in outpatient PT and work with many athletes. I do have a website taylordptw.com and app on the Apple App Store TPTW if you care to vet.

anything I can do to help please let me know. 317-413-3024

Jason