[quote]jj-dude wrote:
[quote]moneymike88 wrote:
[quote]moneymike88 wrote:
Hey room, I know these forums are flooded with herniated disc suffers and therefore I wanted to seek advice. Ive been out of jits since October 09 with a bulging disc in the L5 S1. It a slight bulge and its barely touching the nerves, yet its causing slight numbness in the right leg. Its healed substantially since then and it feels almost completely healed.
My specialist however suggested I consider a second round of physical therapy. He thinks I have poor range of motion in my hips and my lower back muscles are very weak (obviously considering i cant fucking DL or do any such exercises).
I am thinking simple lower back exercises such as back extensions could help, yet I am still in the dark about this. I’d rather avoid another round of physical therapy for the sake of my bank account, therefore if anyone has had any success overcoming this type of injury to the extent that they can grapple again please throw me a bone here, I need some jits back in my life.[/quote]
And so i return, almost a year later to indicate that little success has been made. While the past few months have been strong in recovery I threw out my back twisting in the shower (go figure) and now I have leg numbness beyond belief. Fortunately I have a new doc whos almost certain I was given a wrong diagnosis since the MRI indicated I had no significant mass effect therefore the numbness may be the result of another issue.
I figured the battle for my physical body might be somewhat interesting for others, feel free to discuss similiar situations and maybe some possible explanations to this leg numbness shit. Being 22 without the ability to choke the shit outta people on the mats is quite disappointing.[/quote]
First off, I don’t have issues like this (knock wood) so take everything I say with a grain of salt, ok?
I found that the greatest source of back/knee pain was a lack of posterior chain activation. There is a direct correlation between how happy my back and knees are and how much I squat or deadlift: When I do them regularly and with good form the muscles get smarter about the motion. This explains the seeming paradox that working the lifts helps the issue. Also remember the cardinal rule of mobility: If something hurts, that probably means that the next joint up or down the kinetic chain lacks mobility. In my many years of coaching MA, Guys who complain about bad knees have darn near 100% glute/hamstring inactivation. Get them stretching and moving and magic occurs. Seriously.
I had back pain for years and tried to do all manner of back extension to fix the issue. What I eventually figured out was that it was the back extensions that were the major contributing factor! This was because I was not actually having the load go 100% to the glutes and hamstrings. Now that I don’t do these, I am happier.
In your case, I would seriously consider unilateral (one-legged) stiff-legged deads =: USDL. Mike Boyle swears by these and my experience is that he gets it right. They will really toast your hammies if you do them right and what’s more, I can tell they really do help the form and power when I do regular deads. The loads are a lot smaller than DLs so you don’t get as much strain on the back anyway. Big plus with USDLs is that the back doesn’t move at all, so even when I’ve pulled something in my back, I can do these just fine. At the least, this is an exercise you want to learn how to do well. It will let you pick stuff off the floor on a bad day.
One last anecdote relates to a guy in my office who was having all manner of back pain. See, he got thrown off a horse and badly messed up his ankle. Once that had healed he was having numbness down the leg and some lower back pain. After quite a while (like a year) of being told he had disc trouble, sciatica, you name it, someone finally took an MRI of his back. Guess what? When he fell off the horse, he had shattered his spine and pelvis in several places. His pains for that year were actually his untreated fractures healing. Moral of the story? Don’t get thrown off horses? No, wait. How about this: Disc problems are over-diagnosed. Not saying you don’t have one though…
If you were doing a lot of ‘jits’, which is very high intensity training, it is certainly possible you did something else to your back. Combat athletes tend to stay in trunk flexion almost exclusively, which means a lot of them get bad habits about not misusing their posterior chain. The one day they need to use it explosively for that reversal they get hurt.* Do you actually practice taisabaki (=body movement/agility training) on the floor? Just like your standing game requires good footwork, your floor game requires it too and there are a lot more modes of locomotion on the floor than standing. If you are going to get back in the game, ask your instructor for drills that involve bridges, knee-walking, shrimping, turning from front to back and reversing this, etc., etc. Practice these for a bit before you try to get back into the game. You’ll probably find they make life a lot easier in any case.
– jj
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Sorry for the late response, yet im glad I read it. Since my last post I am proud to say im able to front squat, deadlift(light) and run.
JJ- Thanks for the advise. Im already reaquainting myself with those warmup drills as of now. As for the one legged stiff deadlifts, I was having bad pain doing these a few months ago (really light of course), yet now I might be able to give it a shot and see where I’ve progressed. As for the guy in the office, im sure he steers clear of horses as of now.