I have a herniated disk to L5-S1.
Anyone training with it ?
some tips to training ?
Regards from spain
I have a herniated disk to L5-S1.
Anyone training with it ?
some tips to training ?
Regards from spain
I have what may be described as an over cautious approach (pain does that).
I have eliminated all exercises that hurt while I do them or cause pain (from the disc) the following day.
Depending on how bad you situation is this could wipe out a lot of options.
I found out what I could do, I continued doing passive back extensions two or three times a day (did them every hour for the time I was off work) these helped me and are the only exception to the pain avoidance advice above. Avoid sitting for long periods too.
After a couple of months (in my case) i began to re introduce exercises one at a time, to evaluate them, if they produced no pain I kept them.
I managed to get back to doing abs and back raises (‘hyperextensions’) by starting of with no added weight and adding reps where I could. Once I got to doing 3 or 4 sets of 25 I added weight and dropped reps to ~8-10 then worked reps up. After I regained confidence and strength I kept reps to the 6-12 range.
Exercises I can’t do at the moment:
Squat, Deadlift or any of their variations.
Exercises I can do:
Back raise (I used this to get strong enough to BB row) BB Row, heavy abs.
As I have managed to do BB Row I may try deadlifts of a 4-62 block in a few months.
Basically it depends on your own situation, try to find exercises that work for you.
I’d also advise you get hold of a copy of “treat your own back” by Macenzie, it will help you understand what is going on in your back and how to fix it.
The cobra stretch bushido mentioned usually helps whenever I have sudden bouts of pain. When I first started physical therapy it was basically that stretch and learning how to sit properly for the first week or so.
I also agree with bushido that focusing on spinal stability is the best form of future injury prevention. You probably have some muscle imbalance which caused the initial injury, spend some time trying to identify and correct any imbalances.
As far as training goes, just approach everything cautiously. You’ve seriously injured yourself, and it’s something you need to remain conscious of whenever you train. Boffin really hit the nail on the head with his suggestions.
That being said, i’ve gotten back to squatting and deadlifting quite a bit, but I’m young enough that I bounce back…I’ll probably regret it within a few years.
Good luck,
Jes