So a couple of weeks ago I messed up my back doing t-bar rows. I have been doing exercises to help with the injury but I am unable to perform squats and deads at the moment, are there any leg exercises that would not put pressure on the spine?
I’ve had several lower back injuries, and am only these past 6 months able to really cut loose. What I’ve found works for me, and puts no undue stress on my lunbar region…
Front squats in stead of back squats,
Seated Leg Curls instead ofstanding/laying,
VERY LIGHT SLDeads just to get a nice stretch in my hams and back
S
Thanks I will be trying those. I was wondering if single leg exercises like bulgarian squats and lunges would put excessive pressure on the back.
[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
Thanks I will be trying those. I was wondering if single leg exercises like bulgarian squats and lunges would put excessive pressure on the back.[/quote]
I’ve had my l5 disc rupture, had surgery and it’s ruptured a bit more now.
Lunges allow for less overall load on the spine while maximizing the weight at the same time because it is a single leg movement.
I have a back problem as well…bulgarians are most likely a safe option, still brace your core like you are doing a squat or deadlift though
maybe stick in the higher rep ranges as well
i have lower back issues…no full squats for me anymore. leg press was out too until i started doing it one leg at a time. you can go heavy enough to really blast your quads but since it’s only one leg, it’s not enough weight to put any real strain on your back. plus you can position yourself to further lessen any back involvement.
front squats are great if you have back issues.
[quote]1morerep wrote:
i have lower back issues…no full squats for me anymore. leg press was out too until i started doing it one leg at a time. you can go heavy enough to really blast your quads but since it’s only one leg, it’s not enough weight to put any real strain on your back. plus you can position yourself to further lessen any back involvement. [/quote]
Same here. Recently, I had some pretty bad back pain and just about the only thing I could do were single leg exercises. I really got into doing single leg presses and found that I could still get a pretty good quad workout when doing them and not aggravate my back further.
hey man. i know your pain. low back injuries are probably the second worst injury behind shoulder dislocation for resistance training. I heriated my l5 - s1 disk due to back squats. i consider back squats the worst exercise bar none for back injuries, if like 90% of all people, you are unable to do them properly. to go deep with back squats whilst maintaining a neutral spine position requires a huge amount of ham/calf flexibility, and if your over 6 ft its almost impossible, but i digress.
one thing i would say to you is to make sure you actually let the injury heal before trying any heavy resistance training. a lot of bodybuilders think that training ‘around’ a low back injury is possible, however if say you train chest and your lifting 80 lbs dummbells from a rack, thats 160 lbs of pressure going through your lumbar (im pressuming youve hurt low back) spine. when the disks are in a compromised state due to injury, the injury is only going to get worse than better. in the long term it is better to train consitantly for 20 years than to train periodically at all.
i wouldnt even worry about leg training specifically for a while. this may seem like the worst advice in the world but lets say you had three months off of free weight training as i did about 9 months ago. tghis does two things. it allows the injury to heal (intervertibral disks take ages to heal due to limited blood supply). secondly this time will allow you to do other things to improve your condition such as core training and also increasing flexibilty.
being flexible does not only reduce the chance of future injury, it also reduces pain especially related to nerve impingement. stretching was the only thing that eased my leg pain and the thing which aggrivated it was loading and lumbar flexion.
i cannot stress the importance of core training. if you do not partake in a well structured and guided core program this will be an ongoing and worsening ijury for years to come. disc problemc have a habit of reoccuring a lot in a persons life and one reason is that people do not realise that the cause of the injury is poor core muscle activation and coordination. see a physio. see an exercise physiologist bacause they can help to ensure that you have a long and safe lifting life which will yeild far better results due to consistent training.
after you have done that you should then start to think about resuming training AND maintaining your core/flexibility program. yes you will lose size in the lay off. i did. i estimate i lost about 5 kg of muscle, however the beautiful thing about muscle is that if its been there before it will come back quickly.
one piece of advice i could give anyone who has an injury is don’t think about where i want to be at in 2 weeks. realisticlly you need to be giving the body enough time that is needed to heel and ask yourself where do i want to be in 6 months. if the answer is pain free and training regularly, take the time away from the gym and heal, but if the answer is in the same position as i am in now, keep training ‘around’ an ongoing irjury.