Upper back 'injury'

Hey,

I’ve lurked for a really long time and you really changed my life with the perspective on injuries as I’ve pretty much managed to not blow things out of proportion and so far everything I’ve had resolved itself based on all the info I got from the podcasts and the articles. In the past I spent like 2 months resting and wasting money on physiotherapists that just told me to stretch for a few weeks.

However atm I have a bit of a strange injury and I would really appreciate some insight. I started doing yoke walks and I haven’t felt anything during but about a month or so later I’ve felt just this sensation on a thorasic disk when I press it, sort of like ghost pain, every few days or so. It wasn’t anything special, however (stupidly enough) I’ve really upped my upper back volume a bit too suddenly. I went from back squats 2x a week and front squats 1x to 3x front squats and I’ve also replaced my bench press with OHP. So I went from 2x bench and 1x OHP as assistance to OHP and push press as main exercises with weights up to 85-95%. On top of this I’m doing a ton of strongman work so heavy farmers walks for distance, sandbag carries, heavy sandbag to shoulder, even zercher carries and overall just a ton of upper back volume. I’ve got accustomed to the volume in general but I think I overdid it these past few weeks.

I didn’t feel anything in particular during training but about 1 day after rest day as I sat for a long time I started feeling a decent amount of upper back pain just resting and weirdly enough it hurts when I press a disc I would say T1, literally on the bone but now it hurts a bit more just to the side.

I’ve modified my training and I only feel it in certain ranges of motion. For example I can do deadlifts just fine but it hurts to hold it at lockout so I’ve done deadlifts and dropping it just before lockout. I also don’t really feel it during OHP and weirdly enough not even sandbag to shoulder. I do however feel it during front squats, when I do 70% I barely feel any pain however when I get to 80-85% I can definitely feel it, and I have started doing lightweight front squats only once a week and I even tried safety bar where I only felt a little bit of pain due to pressing.

Now it seems the pain has kind of been the same these past 7-8 days, some days better some days worse. I wouldn’t even ask although I am a bit worried as generally I’m used to these little tweaks but now I can kind of feel pain when I touch a spinal disc. Granted I did carry 2x my bodyweight for 60 meters and probably actually pressed the disc with the weight. Should I continue with a modified split where it doesn’t get worse during and about a day after training or could this be a situation where I shouldn’t load my back at all?