Need a Back-Friendly Program

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Sorry. This is gonna be a long one.

I’ve had irregular, nagging low back pains on my right side for weeks to months lately, sometimes spanning a period of one or more days in a row. Sciatica’ish ‘stabs’ down my right leg too, which I have never had before in my life (I’m late into my 24th year of life).

This seemed to have been aggravated by squatting heavy, although now it seems even rowing with a weight I can easily handle is proving painful. I expect the pain to subside in a week or so if I just don’t lift but that is not a dream option and it will probably resurface soon as I resume lifting.

Another problem is I do contortion stuff and this involves a fair amount of frontbending which apparently puts a lot of pressure on the disks somewhat similar to back squatting or bent over rowing.

I need to try to balance this out with a fair amount of backbending which sort of pushes my back back in (suggested by yoga community) and I’m also trying to start throwing in a lot of ab work which I got away without fairly well until recently.

The pain is tough enough that I’m really beyond the point of sacking up and need to consider my health for a change.

The basis of my current program has been as follows:
-Bench
-Military
-ATG back squat
-Thick bar snatch dead
-Thick bar high pull
-Bent over row

Pretty basic since I’ve just been trying to get the numbers up recently and not care about detail. Anyway, I’ve thrown in irregular GHM’s and have done the movement with up to 30 kilos of extra weight which I wager is quite a lot.

This seems like a good movement to keep the posterior chain in some shape so I wonder if it’s common practice to keep piling up the weight as strength progresses or is this considered just a light auxiliary exercise and therefore not much of a mass/strength builder?

Barbell rows seem risky so maybe throw in lat pulldowns and horizontal cable rows (don’t know the proper name of this exercise).
I believe only explosive shrugging over reasonable ROM will build the traps properly so I guess I’ll have to to find some machine for that too.

Leg press for quads? Hamstrings are hard to figure out. I don’t believe in curls much and the GHM mostly seems to go into my back.

With those solved, my main lingering concern is grip/forearm development which I became enthusiastic about since starting thick bar stuff. Suppose I’ll just do everything, including cable motions, thickened up…although I don’t believe it’s as effective as pulling a far barbell.

So much for my speculations regarding the future. I would like to hear from anyone about this, especially those who have worked around back issues.

2

Dude, if you have back pain accompanied by shooting pains down your leg, don’t worry about programming, get to a doctor. If you have nerve compression or a disk issue ignoring it can easily send you into a spiral of back pain that is nearly impossible to get out of.

3

I’ve got 2 bad discs that I’ve tried to rehab with no success. Been to chiro and physical therapy and still have the pain. So my exercise selection is permanently based on working around the lower back issues.

The 3 top exercises that fuck my back up are:
Deadlifts
Bent over rows
Back squats

I have to avoid these like plague because doing any of these 3 with even light weight will stiffen my back up for days.

For deadlifts you can substitute single leg deadlifts for lower back and these will hit the hamstrings very nicely. You can find variations of this lift on youtube. I don’t know why your against doing leg curls either, as they are a great exercise to develop your hams. Maybe an article bashed them or something?

For bent over rows, you can substitute one arm bent over rows on a bench. Or any type of seated row. The cable row still hurts my back when my feet are up so I keep them on the floor and use one arm. I love the hammer strength ISO row too.

If you love to squat, do front squats. They don’t put much pressure on the lower back and kill your quads. Leg Presses still hurt my back a little so I do them single legged. Lunges wont fuck with your back either and will give you a good workout.

Pressing: I’ve never had any issues doing bench pressing. For your shoulder the best bet is a high incline press on the smith machine or with dumbells. Standing over head press still puts pressure on the back and for me the seated 90 degree angle one is even worse. So what I do is put the incline very high but not vertical. This takes almost all the pressure off my lower back and still hits my shoulders nicely.

Lastly, you need to build up and strengthen your core. Look in my hub under articles and you’ll see a bunch of core building articles. They’re all worth reading if you have serious back issues.

4

Thank you for your answers. Point taken about medical attention. As for leg curls, I just have not got much out of them I guess and I’ve read articles stating that the compound pulls and related static (for hamstrings) lifts bring the best out of the muscle.

5

[quote]Alffi wrote:
Thank you for your answers. Point taken about medical attention. As for leg curls, I just have not got much out of them I guess and I’ve read articles stating that the compound pulls and related static (for hamstrings) lifts bring the best out of the muscle.[/quote]

I was in two bad car accidents a year ago and tweaked my back something fierce. I had a perpetually frozen piriformis and gluteus medius on my right side which caused bad sciatica down my right leg. Even though it was a pain in the ass (haha) to find a health care practitioner that was interested in doing more than telling me to stop lifting weights, I did, got everything checked out, cleared that it wasn’t a disk issue (relieved) and got into PT. As a lifter you should respond well to a good therapist as unlike the average chuckle head you’ll actually be able to follow home exercise instructions. Get that shit taken care of, if nothing else figuring out the actual cause of the problem will help you in figuring out an exercise selection that doesn’t exacerbate it.

6

I fucked up my back doing back squats (incorrectly whilst trying to teach myself) an cannot do dead lift’s or back squats, front squats for sets of 5 not going to heavy and kettle bell swings are o.k, but when my back was really bad I could hardly step down the curb without feeling pain.

This is how I worked my legs more thoroughly than ever, and helped my back…

  1. regular visits to a good Chiropractor
  2. bought and used a reverse hyper machine
  3. invested in an iron mind olympic loading pin and hip belt, instead of using it as they advise with the daisy chains and the bar between your legs I made 3 piles of breeze blocks in a triangle shape, pile the plates on the pin on one, stand on the other two, lean forwards with bent knees and clip the belt on then stand up and squat so the weight goes between my legs, you can adjust the height/ depth so you can break the eccentric/ concentric chain (like a box squat does) these are great, most people haven’t tried them and it gives you a chance to really take the legs all out without worrying about the back holding out.

I’m not built for back squats and don’t miss them one bit, doing belt squats in a wide stance for one training cycle then closer in weight lifting shoes will keep you from going stale, good luck dude!