[quote]Zack Nelson wrote:
I have had quite a few herniated discs in my low back, midback and neck. Confirmed by MRI. My first lumbar herniation was in 1984. From carwrecks, combat sports etc. I have had sciatica on a couple of occassions, and the similar radicular pain down the right arm once before. I do ok now. My best deadlift was a 500+ deadlift. I have also done a 365 X 7 Romanian deadlift. I have done a 365 X 15 squat, in 2003. Now I just do leg presses though.[/quote]
Zack, why, exactly, are you doing leg presses exclusively given that you mention relative success with the big lifts despite your multiple injuries? Was there a reinjury that forced you to make the switch? Are you just being extra cautious?
I’ve heard leg presses can be particularly harsh on the lower back. Have they given you any problems?
I herniated a disk in the lumbar region in February of this year. I couldn’t lift for one month, and I also couldn’t deadlift or squat for 6 months. Here’s how it happened. Before the injury, I was repping out 500 lbs on deadlift for 15 reps, so I tried getting up 700 lbs to pretty much boost my ego. I was 270 lbs. I got the weight up, but I felt something tweak in my back. I didn’t think much of it then, but over the next 2 weeks, it got really bad each time I deadlifted. I got it checked out, and it turned out it was a disk, but I am dead broke and wanted to see if I could let it heal through chiropractic care.
I just recently in the past few weeks became capable of deadlifting and squatting again. My deadlift #'s went from what they were to about 405 for 3, and my squat went from low 600’s to about 275 for 1. My legs looked so much smaller it was ridiculous. I’ve been back into deadlifting and squatting for about 3 weeks now, and my deadlift and squat are climbing again (425 for 10 for deadlift and 295 for 10 for squat). My body weight got down to 210 lbs from 270 lbs, but I was also cutting at the time. I lost a lot of muscle during this period, especially in the legs because I couldn’t do heavy leg work. I used to have to get pants at least 4 inches too big in the waist and in the loose style just to fit my legs, but not anymore. I’ve gained 20 lbs as of today since starting from the first day of my bulk from 2 Mondays ago, so my muscle memory is definitely kicking back in and I’m packing back on all of that lost mass lost from not doing heavy lifting.
So, to sum it up, I can now deadlift and squat as heavy as I want (though not nearly as heavy as I was back in February), but I can’t do a lot of ab exercises because it puts pressure on my nerve when I flex the abdominals. I still have a slight bit of pain every once in a while, but nothing serious. It hurts slightly whenever I hunch over in a desk chair or something like that, but I can lift as heavy as I want now, and I guess that’s all that matters. I did switch to sumo deadlift stance though. It helps me keep my form down better.
Don’t let an injury ruin your lifting career. I know my back isn’t 100% yet, but I’m a little bit too stubborn to stop lifting. I’m gonna have it looked at again to see what I need to do to fix it.
I find myself on this thread because of a similar injury. So I’m going to give it a bit of a bump to see if anyone has figured out how to work through an injury like this. I’m 21 years old, 20 at time of injury.
Back in Jan, I was at home and was doing active stretching for my legs (swinging kicks) and felt a slight twinge. Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but the next day I couldn’t get off the couch. A bunch of pain meds later, I went to the docs who thought it was bursitis of the hip. 2 cortisone shots later, I was back to working out.
Crunches and oblique work still bothered me so I stopped doing it. I was still doing squats and deads. A few months later, I started getting twinges in my ankles and an Xray showed no ankle injury so the doc ordered an MRI. Turns out that my hip ‘injury’ was a herniated disc (l4-l5) that was causing a pinched nerve and sciatica. I stopped doing deads and squats.
I’ve since noticed that I can’t do 1 arm db rows without pain when working up to heavier weights because of some twisting motion involved in body english. So I’m either going to drop them or see if higher reps/lighter weight with strict form will have to do it for a while. Or maybe higher rep barbell rows because I don’t twist during those.
I stopped doing heavy trap shrugs. I now do them with light dumbbells for 20ish reps. I dropped squats for db lunges, and deadlifts entirely.
I was wondering what exercises people had found they could do while doing rehab for injuries such as this. Thanks.
So far I’ve come up with the following.
BP and CGBP performed with legs on the bench to decrease leg drive, and thus back involvement. I’m not going to do anything with dumbells on the bench since getting into and out of the position feels sketchy.
Nothing with twisting motion work so no direct oblique work.
Chest supported rows instead of bb rows or db rows.
In the past 3-4 months Ive been having pain right around L4-L5. Its been just a constant, dull pain, that got better when I bent forwad. Based on those symptoms, I kind of think its probably a slipped disk. So, I ditched all bilateral leg movements that put a lot of compression on the spine, especially back squat as it caused the most pain. Ive been doing lots of lunges/split squats (with DBs), glute-ham raises, leg curls, and back extensions. In the past 1-2 weeks the pain has nearly vanished. Im almost 100% back squats are the culprit, so maybe in another few weeks Ill get back into some front squats (these have never bothered me). Thanks for the dig on this thread. Id been looking for one like this, but hadnt been able to find one.
[quote]guitarlifter wrote:
[…]
So, to sum it up, I can now deadlift and squat as heavy as I want (though not nearly as heavy as I was back in February), but I can’t do a lot of ab exercises because it puts pressure on my nerve when I flex the abdominals . I still have a slight bit of pain every once in a while, but nothing serious. It hurts slightly whenever I hunch over in a desk chair or something like that, but I can lift as heavy as I want now, and I guess that’s all that matters. I did switch to sumo deadlift stance though. It helps me keep my form down better.
Don’t let an injury ruin your lifting career. I know my back isn’t 100% yet, but I’m a little bit too stubborn to stop lifting. I’m gonna have it looked at again to see what I need to do to fix it.[/quote]
^emphasis mine
I flex my abdominal muscles like crazy when deadlifting.
Except for light squats I do it practically with all big lifts.
So I wonder how you could deadlift at all.
I’ve recently had some back pain but it wasn’t a slipped disc according to an x-ray. Practitioner says it was a inflamed disc. It hasn’t healed for a year so I finally decided to stop doing all leg work. WHen it happened about a year ago I stopped squatting and deadlifting for a couple months. I hope this time it heals fully because I always wanted to bring my legs up. It still hurts sometimes with minor movements.
FIsh oil helped deal with pain quite a bit, Maybe I should get Biotest’s version.
Earthquake, has your doc prescribed oral steroids?
They don’t hit it as directly as say an epidural would, but for me a 6 day course really helped me get through a flare up. Maybe that would be enough to quiet yours down?
I’m not a medical practitioner, but is the disc inflamed or bulging enough to put pressure on nerves. From everything I’ve been told and read (from medical sources and family members who are docs) the discs themselves have very little blood supply (avascular) and the issues start when they apply any pressure to the nerves.
Hey thanks ride, the doctor said it was pinching a nerve (sciatic). I didn’t get prescribed anything medically. He did order an MRI which will take a long time.
I stopped seeing a PT a long time ago but I still keep up my exercises.
Yeah, I have a pinched nerve as well. I get sciatica and I can’t raise my left leg straight to parallel with the ground. It feels like it’s getting caught in my hip, that’s because of the pinched nerve.
See if the doc can issue the oral steroids, if they don’t work then you know what doesn’t work. They gave me good relief when it was really bad, so maybe you don’t need them. I’m also on cyclobenzabrine before bed. It’s a muscle relaxant and it helps as well. I take it if I start getting sciatica at night.
To be honest, mine hasn’t been acting much lately (knocks on wood). I’ve also stopped doing deads and squats. I had switched to front squats. I’m going to ask the PT if I can still do them but do them really light for a bit. I feel like deads can be beneficial if done light and right because they activate the very region that’s responsible for keeping the discs supported.
For me, twisting motions are the worst. I stopped doing those at the beginning of the year.
I re-occured mine squatting the bar and maybe 10 to 20 lbs at the most, so doing light work still scares the shit out of me.
Did you have any tightness in your lower body that may have also helped cause all this? I have read about a lot of people doing myofascial release with a foam roller and then onto a softball here who had success. Not quite yet for myself though.
My PT remarked that I had a lot of lower back tightness earlier, I think that was post injury though. I have really tight hamstrings as do most cyclists. I just can’t stretch mine after the hip tightness so I’m fubared in that regard.
I herniated L4-5 on the right side right around the time I graduated college. It actually forced a shift in career paths from firefighting to physical therapy (I start PT school in June). I had the discectomy done, but that was before I knew what I know now. The surgery helped eliminate the pain in the back, but from what I’ve learned it sounds like I’m lucky.
I’ve begun front squatting and deadlifting again. I hit 275 for a single on the front squat on saturday, and deadlifted 385 with a trap bar a couple of weeks ago. I don’t currently plan on resuming back squats, and my back was more sore than I would like it to be after trying some sumo dls a few days ago.
I am still reminded daily about my back, generally just tickles of discomfort. It’s probably for the best so I remain motivated to maintain my core strength and technique while lifting.
To answer the original question, Derek Poundstone is a WSM competitor and he hernaited a couple of discs and is currently one of the top strongmen in the world. I also played football with a guy in highschool who herniated L4-5, had the discectomy, played college football and is currently a trainer. He just had an article on sprint training posted over on EFS.
Core stability, strength, and lifting technique will all go a long way in helping you do what you want to do.
[quote]utHAUS wrote:
I herniated L4-5 on the right side right around the time I graduated college.
Core stability, strength, and lifting technique will all go a long way in helping you do what you want to do.[/quote]
I herniated the exact same disc and my right side (glutes/hams/lower back) was in pain. Not sure when it happened as I didn’t feel a tweak but it had been progressing for over a year (apparently pelvis was out of alignment probably due to a tackle in Rugby and something happened in late Nov/Dec 2009 which made it really uncomfortable). Did not address the issue as I thought it was a muscular problem so I just did foam rolling and stretching and continued to lift heavy for me (squats/deads) and strongman stuff as well. Got to the point where squeezing was incredibly painful and I couldn’t raise my right leg. Finally went to the Chiro and she took an X-Ray and found it was indeed a herniated disc. Went to the chiro Mid-Feb of this year and have been progressing since. Have not considered doing a deadlift or squat yet but I set myself the optimistic goal of squatting/deadlifting light late-May. After reading everyone’s responses on this forum I now may put that back. Started doing bodybuilding regime for my upper body (benching feet on bench, curls, db oh press, dips, flys, db bench, farmers walks for fun) and seem to be doing fine and making good progress still. Chiro is skeptical and says I shouldn’t do any deadlifts ever again and doesn’t rate squats highly. Surprisingly I was making PB’s (with my herniated disc) and managed to hit 400 on the dead and 350 for the squat within my first year of lifting. Still want to squat heavy and deadlift heavy again but only if I’m back to normal. Also want to continue doing strongman training as I really enjoy it but I guess that might be even more dangerous (especially things like stones, yoke).
What exercises would anybody recommend for the lower body (besides squats/deads). Want to gradually work my way back in. Just hope strength hasn’t gone completely down the toilet. Wanted to hit at least a 2xBW squat and hopefully 2.5xBW deadlift by the end of the year but might need re-adjusting now. Would people recommend switching to a lighter bodybuilding type regime like 5x10 as opposed to 5/3/1 in terms of preserving my back? Only 20 years old and still want to play ball sports through most of my life.