Lower left back is excessively tight and overly developed. After any low back work, the region will tighten up, doesn’t relax, and has sent pain through butt and into thigh(particularly during long drives). However, when I tighten my right side, the pain subsides and everything is ok.
on a side note: I also think my right knee is laterally tracking from an internally rotated femur.
Basically I think I’m pinching my sciatic nerve from my left side being excessively tight and having an underdeveloped right side, possibly a bulging disk.
What should I do? Excercises and stretches to try and fix it? ART? Chiro? Any input would be awesome.
Lower left back is excessively tight and overly developed. After any low back work, the region will tighten up, doesn’t relax, and has sent pain through butt and into thigh(particularly during long drives). However, when I tighten my right side, the pain subsides and everything is ok.
on a side note: I also think my right knee is laterally tracking from an internally rotated femur.
Basically I think I’m pinching my sciatic nerve from my left side being excessively tight and having an underdeveloped right side, possibly a bulging disk.
What should I do? Excercises and stretches to try and fix it? ART? Chiro? Any input would be awesome.[/quote]
I just read Stuart McGills Low Back Disorders book. There is an exercise that targets the sciatic nerve to keep it from getting pinched into one place. Basically you sit on a bench with your legs hanging over the edge, take your leg, extend it up while simulataneously extending your neck back then lower the leg back down and lower your head forwards. It moves your sciatic nerve to keep it from getting stuck. It is called “flossing”.
Also sounds like a nice imbalance which could definitely cause pain as well as lead to an injury if you ar enot careful
I suffered through the same thing. The pain shooting through my lower back and hip got pretty excruciating. I could barely get out of my car after sitting for more than 20 minutes.
Anyway, I tried to suck it up for about a year and then finally went to a chiro. Fixed me right up. I really thought I would be in pain for the rest of my life. Turns out something was out of alignment in my lower back due to muscle imbalance. As a result, I got these shooting pains down my through my hip and leg. The muscles were so tight that the chiro had to zap me with these electrodes at nearly full power to get them to relax before he could give me an adjustment.
BTW - I didn’t feel better overnight. I’d try going once or twice a week for at least a month.
I’m so glad for this thread. It read my mind. I just started to do squats, and boy that just about killed my back. I did squats perhaps 2 weeks ago and my back still aches. Granted I did some GMs to try and work my lower back. All it did was seem to make it worse.
Its some really aching pain. Mine is more like its hard to bend over or squat down which is a lot of my job. My back is just so tight that I wonder what to do for it. I want to keep exercising it in hopes that it will get better but I dont know. You would think it would be like the normal soreness and aches that last a day or two. But its been much longer than that. I do know that one side of my lower back is stronger than the other…thats what brought me here.
Any suggestions for me? Stretches? Massages? Keep using weights? Stop?
[quote]Tank53 wrote:
I’m so glad for this thread. It read my mind. I just started to do squats, and boy that just about killed my back. I did squats perhaps 2 weeks ago and my back still aches. Granted I did some GMs to try and work my lower back. All it did was seem to make it worse.
Its some really aching pain. Mine is more like its hard to bend over or squat down which is a lot of my job. My back is just so tight that I wonder what to do for it. I want to keep exercising it in hopes that it will get better but I dont know. You would think it would be like the normal soreness and aches that last a day or two. But its been much longer than that. I do know that one side of my lower back is stronger than the other…thats what brought me here.
Any suggestions for me? Stretches? Massages? Keep using weights? Stop?[/quote]
Stretching could obviously help, but if the damage is already done, it may not provide much relief. Assuming your lifting form is good, you may want to look into other factors, in particular your mattress. If you’re waking up sore, that’s probably the culprit.
If you don’t want to spend the dough on a new mattress, try popping two or three advil before bed. This actually works wonders for me.
Thanks, I never thought of how I slept or the mattress I use. That makes a lot of sense.
One thing I’ve noticed is if I lean to the left, my back hurts much more (on the right side of the spine). If I lean to the right, my back hurts less overall. I believe it is uneven erectors and I will keep training them. I need to search on here to find some good back training exercises…
From the first one, basically describing my symptoms:
I also found that a tight piriformis can cause sciatic pain. So in addition to tons of stretching, what type of work could I do for the weak side? 1 arm deadlifts(if so, which arm should be holding the weight)? Bulgarian Split Squats?
(Any Prime Time comments and suggestions are strongly encouraged. cough cough, wink wink)
I would focus on getting the sides equal flexibility wise first, then add in the single-leg loading exercises.
Lunges, Bulgarian squats, and step-ups would all be good single leg choices. I wrote an entire article entitled “Single Leg Supplements” if you want to see pics and descriptions of all of them.
I would suggest that you find a good sports med chiro or PT in your area that can give you a good assessment.
You could definitely have a disc problem, at least, that is one thing you would want to rule out.
You would want to find out if the muscle imbalance is a cause or effect.
Once the problem is identified, several things can be done to help.
Suitcase deadlifts (one arm DL’s), One leg at a time reverse hypers, bird-dogs, etc. Always work both sides, the weaker side could be worked for an added set if necessary.
Mike, Dr. Ryan, and everyone else, thanks alot for the comments and advice. I really appreciate it.
The sciatic pain is probably a year old.
I believe the imbalance is as old as 2.5 years. I want to say the imbalance is a result of not switching my grip enough (left hand under, right over) and trauma to my right knee about 6 years ago, both causing me to favor my left side. (right knee stability is also much worse than the left).