This is my first year in college. During my high school years, I played 4 years of football and one year of baseball. My senior year I was about to squat ATG 225 for sets. I weighed about 160 pounds and am currently 163.
Alright so, after not working out squats for a while, I hit the gym and warm up. 95 pounds went fine. 115 pounds went fine. Now, once I hit 135 and went ATG, I felt something weird at the back “belt line.” I immediately stopped the squats and moved onto something else. I thought nothing of it and just thought I was rusty.
Anyways, I rested it for a couple weeks and decided I would try again later. This time, as I followed the same protocol, I experienced this pain again. I tried to push it, and after the set, the back belt line really hurt. When I bent over, I felt very unstable; sitting down and slouching really amplified the pain. I went to a chiropractor and he told me that I had misaligned the L5 and Sacrum.
After a few adjustments, I felt 90% better. Foolishly, I tested my luck with the squats again…low and behold, the pain was back just as bad as the first time. I went back to the chiropractor and more adjustments. I am about 85% better. Today I went to the gym and did some rack pulls and front squats. Surprisingly there was no pain.
I noticed that every time my back is kept neutral,and my hamstrings aren’t pulled to an uncomfortable position, my lower back seems fine. So here is my question:
Do tight hamstrings tuck the pelvis causing misalignment? (Posterior tilt) In this case, if I ATG squatted, and my hamstrings were very tight, could this affect my L5 and Sacral area due to excessive lumbar flexion?
What can I do to aid in recovery and make sure that this problem does not happen in the future, with squats?
other than realigning/fixing the symptoms, get your hamstrings looser :). Do a lot of mobility and stretching movements for your whole lowerbody, with emphasis on the hamstrings. (There are some good Eric Cressey articles on this stuff, and his Magnificent Mobility DVD is great too.)
Also, make your form and your muscle tightness are symmetrical. My right hamstring used to be a lot tighter than my left, causing me to squat too much to one side, and it led me to some low back issues too (torn ligament).
Honestly, I am not a PT so I can’t tell you anything for sure. Most of what I am telling is pretty much from my personal experience. I hurt myself warming up on squats, like you. I was ridiculously tight, especially in the hamstrings. I was rounding my lower back way too much as result (and was twisting it because of my assymetries).
I guess all I can tell you is tight hamstrings CAN definitely cause lower back issues, and how one can fix them. I can’t tell you if tight hamstrings are causing YOUR lower back issues because I am just a guy on the internet :).
I was helped by:
-mobility drills mainly from the MM DVD (also do an ankle mobility drill - they can be found if you search the articles)
-stretching to get a lot less tight
-stretching to get symmetrical in my flexibility
-paying attention to what type of ROM I could move in without rounding my back (until I built up the necessary flexibilty)
-paying attention to symmetry in my performance of excercise
-doing some balance wobble leg stuff/single leg stuff - I know this stuff is shunned, but it is a part of the rehab process and helps “activate the muscles” and such.
I know its a long list and looks like no fun. Well it is a long list, and it is no fun :P. Watch TV or listen to your iPod while you do this crap lol.
Also, a good hamstring stretch I learned:
Lie on the floor. Take a belt or strap of some sort (I use a karate belt) and loop it around the bottom of one of your feet (near the heel). Hold the strap in your hands and lift your leg by pulling back on the strap. You will feel a stretch in the hamstrings - make sure to keep the leg straight, and make sure you keep the other leg on the ground the whole time.
Now the unusual part: as you are stretching your hamstring with your leg straight, move your leg from side to side in a controlled manner. So move it all the way to the inside (while still pulling on it and keeping it stretched and knee locked), where it will be above and then beyond your opposite leg somewhat. Then move it all the way to the outside. Then back to the regular position, then back to the inside, etc.
This is a way to stretch the hamstring from all angles, which is something that has also recently been advocated on this site. And it worked pretty well for me too.
Lavi, you don’t find that keeping your leg straight throughout the stretch puts too much stress on your knee? Any time I go to stretch my hamstrings and attempt to keep my leg straight it feels like my knee is going to blow up before I get any real stretch in the hamstrings.
Unfortunately, just stretching the hamstrings might not work. A lot of other muscles/other soft tissue could be involved in your problem. Check out this article
[quote]nullshock wrote:
Lavi, you don’t find that keeping your leg straight throughout the stretch puts too much stress on your knee? Any time I go to stretch my hamstrings and attempt to keep my leg straight it feels like my knee is going to blow up before I get any real stretch in the hamstrings.[/quote]
I definitely feel an intense stretch behind my knee, but not any bad pain. I’m not too sure what you’re dealing with, but generally if it hurts you probably shouldn’t do it, and should just stretch with a bent knee. It may be tough to stretch it at all the angles though.
I know some authors have suggested doing only bent-knee hamstring stretches anyway (I think over the long term it supposedly avoids stretching other stuff that you don’t want to be stretched).
Oh yeah, and to the OP - I forgot to mention that foam rolling is important too. Do it where it hurts - there’s plenty of articles on foam rolling too. I’ve worked my way up to using a PVC pipe and Lacrosse balls on most things. PVC is good because its more effective, its cheap, it lasts forever, and it can be cut small enough to fit in a suitcase for travel.
(Unfortunately, foam rolling isn’t very effective on, of all things, your hamstrings. Great for everything else around them though.)
I asked EC about my problem and he said that I was not old or strong enough to have developed this problem.
Lavi, I just ordered MM and hopefully it will loosen me up. Right now I am tight every where. Maybe increasing mobility in some areas will allow to squat ATG again!
Horatio, thanks for the link! I’ve read it and I think that I have too much mobility in my Lumbar region. The pain is only present when my body is in a posterior tilt position. As mentioned before, rack pulls where my spine is neutral, causes no problems. Neither do front squats.
That said, after my chiropractor treatment is done, how do I “stiffen” my lumbar region and prevent any excessive lumbar flexion?