The Infirmary

[Floyd Westwood]

How are you going with this Dan?

After about 6 months away from regular exercise I joined back up at the gym. I knew I had to start small and make sure I got my technique back. However yesterday whilst squatting and felt my lower back go. I'm still mobile, I can walk around and perform most tasks but there's a fair bit of pain if I'm opening a knee-height drawer or similar. I'm sure I put more weight on the bar then I should have; a stupid mistake on my part.

How did you recover the first time you had the injury and at what point did you know you needed to take it to a professional? My partner says stop being a pussy and ride it out lol.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Floyd Westwood

[No Crust Racing]

Slow progress and that's as good as progress on my injury gets from what I'm told by everyone I've seen. I can have the surgery to remove the protrusion and get the disc off the nerve which would remove the nerve pain (my main issue) but I'm really reluctant to want to cut into my back.

For now I do the physio work that anyone with this issue would do, surgery or not, which includes a lot of stretching and mobility work, planking etc.

It helps, but when you really use your back ( spent 5hrs polishing the car yesterday and made sure I had a good stretch, hot shower and used a heat pack) I'm still stiff and tender today.

As for gym, I'm still doing it, check my thread, and managing to do planks, dingle leg lunges and calf raises and some light squatting with a weight belt (to avoid spinal compression). I could be in much worse shape for a 30+ yr old who sits all day. Weight is still holding around the high 80s.

As for when I went pro in seeking help, after I found I could not stretch it out and I needed Ibuprofen to stop the pain (which implied swelling). I saw my physio and we did some work but got no results in a few weeks so he suggested the MRI which confirmed the damage.

[Floyd Westwood]

Ok I might see a physio then.

Is stretching a daily routine for you? Seems like a good long term strategy.

[No Crust Racing]

More or less, I work it into the gym routine M/W/F and will spend 15mins or so on every other day.

I'll also try to have a bit of a stretch before doing anything that's back intensive for me, like whipper snipper, polishing the car, sealing the garage floor etc.

I'll then have a hot shower in the evening and another stretch on heavy use days, sometimes a heat pack also.

It sucks. I do think almost anyone can benefit from regular stretching, but I do sit all day which doesn't help.

[Floyd Westwood]

Yeah I'm the same. Sit behind a computer all day; after work exercise is the only real movement I get during the day. I monitor my diet pretty well but I fear injuries like this will have compound effects that throw everything out of balance.

How do you go with weight management? Did you fluctuate a fair bit?

[No Crust Racing]

Not as much as I used to when I was younger, it remains fairly constant now but I have adjusted my eating since busting up my leg and ankle to compensate for the lack of cardio.

I'm just about to get my exercise bike back and then I can get some low impact cardio going on.

[Floyd Westwood]

Have you guys ever suffered from tennis elbow during your lifting? Got a slight dull ache in my dominate arm. Its very faint so I'm taking a day or two off from the gym and see I'll see how it goes.

Other then pain killers, (for the anti-inflammatory) are there any other remedies?

[No Crust Racing]

Yes, I spent the better part of 2yrs "fixing" it.

I was an epic bro curler and eventually had tendinitis in the elbow badly to the point that reach to open a door was painful.

My advice would be to stop and let it rest immediately and try to work out what's the cause, it should usually be obvious. Curls, chins, maybe rows.

Stop that exercise and let the arm rest.

From there I spent a lot of time with a physio but the main part of that was forearm, wrist, and shoulder conditioning to support the elbow better. Wrist curls, lots of hand bent back forearm and wrist stretching.

I took a lot of time off gym and it basically reset my gym work to zero because I'd continued to train on the bad elbow, it took a long time to recover, a REALLY long time.

When I came back, i used very light weight for curls, got an ezy bar, used cross body hammer curls etc, anything that helped remove strain from the elbow. I would say it's now 95% and I can beat on it pretty hard without drama.

I've also ditched curling completely these days, the only bicep specific work I do is weighted chins which is compound anyway.

So my advice is rest it NOW a week or a month is better than years of rehab work.


Also, on the ankle and back front, ankle is pretty good these days, still rotates out djring light squatting and I don't think I can stop that. I have another step of phsyio above what I've done, but haven't had the time to make up the tool I need to do it.

The back is not too bad for basic work, digging holes seems to upset it as does squatting too much and any form of deadlift/rack pulls. At the moment I only do a single 20rep set of low bar squats at a little under 50kg and that's plenty. I take it very gingerly and have to assess how I feel the next day, if it pulls up sore on tuesday from monday's exercise I go easier on Wednesday.

That said I'm not specifically stretching for it now, only warm up stretches for general gym. I do front and bank planks also for core stability and can still easily touch my toes cold so that's good for me.

Edited July 23, 2014 by ActionDan

[L33SH]

I can beat on it pretty hard without drama.

Too much info

[No Crust Racing]

Haha, no.

I can use a drill, dig holes, polish a car etc and not feel any discomfort.

Weighted chins with full extension in the elbow, no pain etc.

Dirty mind...

[L33SH]

yeah yeah...

[Floyd Westwood]

Alright sounds like a good idea Dan. I tried 30 pushups yesterday in an effort to decide whether I should gym or not. It still felt dull so I went for a run instead. Might give it another week and ditch curls completely, stick with the compound movements.

[No Crust Racing]

Good plan mate, 2 weeks off a few exercises is better than having it be basically dead like mine

[Floyd Westwood]

So I've only had a go at running and essentially leg only days at the gym since last week. Elbow is feeling much better.

Last night I had a go at some chin ups and pull ups in between various sets. The elbow feels great, no pain at all. I'm not 100% convinced I'm healed, so I'm giving it till the end of the week and I'll resume normal exercises, but as you said Dan, I'm foregoing bro curls and other elbow movement intensive exercises. I think the big compound exercises are more then enough for bi's and tri's anyway.

[No Crust Racing]

Sounds good mate, much smarter than me

When you do come back, something I've had success with is going 70-80% first session back, by that I mean volume so you can either drop weight and keep the same reps/sets, or (what I prefer) is keep the same weight but drop some reps of the final set or drop a set all together.

See how you pull up from that and if you're solid then consider a 100% next session.

[Floyd Westwood]

Yeah smart idea. I'm erring on the side of caution.

Sounds like the tendinitis really knocked you about.

[No Crust Racing]

Very much so. 2 years from the start of the problem to being able to lift even the lightest weights again.

From mid 90kgs to high 70s.

In the end I just gave up doing any weights at all and was very conscientious about how I opened doors, how I help my arm when I slept, etc. It was ridiculous, but all my own fault.

[Floyd Westwood]

Wow dude. That's intense.

[No Crust Racing]

Extreme case I think. Also too arrogant and refused to listen to people who told me ease off for a while lol

[Floyd Westwood]

Well last night I resumed normal workouts. Full weights but only two full sets and half of the third. Took it really easy, concentrated excessively on form.

Elbow is feeling great today. I'm going to have a day off anyway and resume workouts tomorrow just to be on the safe side.

Thanks for all the advice Dan.