I have been plagued with a very limiting lower back pain since June. I think it was caused from doing too much good mornings/stifflegged deadlifts, which has caused lower back pain before, but never to this extend. It also might have been caused from heavy sets of leg press while curling my hips up. Whatever the cause, this aching pain doesnt want to go away. I tried rest with muscle relaxers and massages at first. As soon as i rehit the gym, the pain came back. Finally i got my father to agree to let me see an ART instructor. Well, after 4 sessions the problem didnt go away, and now my father is sour about all ART. What ive been doing lately is stretching at nights, and having my dad give deep tissue massages after my workouts. It has gotten much better than it originally was, but it still won’t go away, and i feel its not going to with time. I am still limited with exercises to avoid pain. I dont know what to do. Also, i have mild scoliosis at 7 degress. I found this out recently and will be going to the doctor next week to be evaluated. Anyone have suggestions on what to do?
As for the stretching, it all feels better, except after i do back bridges. After hearing from several people, i thought this exercise really helped back and neck pain?? But it causes my lower back to ache afterwards. Is this normal? Should i be doing this excercise for this condition? or does the pain indicate a problem?
I’d say yeah, the back pain indicates a problem. The bridges would aggravate something like that because the muscle that is injured is contracted or you messed up your spine from raising your hips for leg presses. Sorry, no tips on solving the problem.
Sounds like you’ve pulled a muscle (can’t be 100% sure w/o further details). But since muscle relaxers and massages seem to be what you’re doing to help it, it’s probably a muscular problem and not a spinal problem (which would be very bad).
Here are some tips:
Rest your back. Stay away from heavy loads. You can train your legs with bodyweight or light-load exercises. See Ian King's Limping program for some examples. If you play with tempos and other TUT techniques, you can get a great leg workout without heavy loads.
I'd stay away from the back bridges. From what I remember (having tried back bridges a while back), they are more for neck/shoulder issues. They tend to shorten/contract your lower back muscles, which would not help in your case.
Try doing some Reverse-Hypers. Do these often and in high reps. Do a T-mag search if you don't know how to do these. Best way, of course, is to use a dedicated machine. But if you can't get access to it, there are other alternatives. Work your way up to Pull-throughs and DB swings when you start to feel better, but keep the load light and work in high reps.
Strengthen your core. Ab work may be tough and painful right now, but you can do TVA (core) work with isometric contractions. There have been several recent articles with some examples (e.g. Fat to Fire 2). Plank, side plank, Horse stance, or even Power Breathing are just some examples of what you can do to strengthen your core.