My wife did a deadlift when she shouldn't have. Next thing we know she spent a week unable to move and came close to not being able to walk again. Ever.
Turns out that the possibility of your vertebrae popping out and pinching the spinal cord is NOT to be taken lightly. It hasn't happened to you, but if a bunch of people with back problems take your advice then you WILL cripple someone.
Yes. Exercise is the best thing for a back. But know what is wrong, what works, what helps, and what doesn't. Don't just be a cowboy and pray.
Man, it sure is hard to make decisions in this world, isn't it?
I've helped several friends and family fix their chronic back pain through deadlifts and similar. Chiropractors didn't help. They didn't believe in or couldn't afford specialists. I'm not even a trainer, just a software developer.
From what I've seen, chronic back pain is way more down to back weakness, and easily and safely fixable by training the back with any of many standard exercise. Your body was meant to do these things!
So, then, how many success stories overweigh a horror story? When should people choose to take matters into their own hands when the world's supply of expertise is limited or giving mixed messages...
...or only unsuccessful. I mean, who doesn't know people that got back surgery and they still have back pain? Want to bet that many of those people should have strengthened their backs instead?
Of course, some people, like my brother-in-law, refuse to exercise, so surgery is the only option.
But I bet a lot of those who got surgery never got a compelling pitch making it clear that exercise usually works. The incentives for those handing out surgeries are too perverse.
Not that you mentioned it, but what scares me is all the surgeries. My coworker's programmer husband got back surgery, picked up an infection in the spinal cord, and now he's permanently paralyzed on disability.
True story. Back in the Clinton days, there was a committee created to evaluate medical treatments and make official recommendations on which were cost effective and which were not.
Their first recommendation was that back surgery was not called for until the possibility of all other treatments had been ruled out. The data for this back in the 1990s was very strong and based on the facts, it should have been non-controversial. The data showed a fairly low success rate, and even for the short-term successes, a 10 year prognosis that was worse for equivalent patients than any alternative treatment. (Including "do nothing".)
The data notwithstanding, back surgeons as a group are very well off and tend to donate to politicians. Furthermore hospital administrators make more money off of back surgery than the others. En masse they began calling their local congress critter to say that something had to be done about this committee report. The result was that Congress got together and the committee report quickly got buried, and the committee's remit was changed so that it no longer could issue such recommendations.
As long as you can approach back problems with exercise, do so.
For my wife's problem? What worked was Valium to solve the back spasms, the disk slipped back in and luckily the nerves had not been killed while it was out, and then a slow exercise regime to stabilize her back. However until her spine was well and truly better and she had better stabilization, NOTHING to cause compression of the spine. (Which deadlifts do.)
Thats a scary story, glad your wife was ok eventually. I don’t know much about anatomy and heavy deadlifts always make me a little nervous. Isn’t stabilization the issue though? I always thought the whole core was supposed to be supporting the spine so how could a vertebra pop out unless something went really went wrong?
Deadlifts don't need to be heavy. In fact, if it is muscle weakness in the posterior chain that is causing back pain, more reps at lighter weight is a better way to develop them.
Anecdata, and unrelated to the back: With 100% correlation, anytime I start getting RSI symptoms, I can reference my training log and it turns out I haven't been diligent with the holy combination of face pulls and raw deadlifts. Data points of approx N=8, patient count only N=1.
No ergonomic chair, keyboard, mouse, etc required; just strength. And not a single orthopedist will discuss face pulls as a solution to RSI.
You're absolutely right and I should've stated the caveat that you have to know your body. There's a difference between some discomfort and something really being wrong. I have enough experience to know when it's the former and when it's really time to pack it up and go home. If I can't execute with perfect form, I stop. And I'm always reducing the load a lot when I'm rehabing something minor. Never be a cowboy.
You really just have to know yourself. It's easy to just to convince yourself to refrain with the excuse that you're injured or whatever when really it's just laziness - only you can know the reality if you're honest with yourself. Also, just because you can't deadlift doesn't mean you can't do SOMETHING else. It's rare that you cannot move at all and some movement is better than nothing.
We agree that exercise is the best thing for a back. With good posture getting an honorable mention. We agree that a lot of things that a lot of people think are bad can actually be helpful to most.
What I can add to it is that when you have a back problem, it is critical to understand what the problem is, what makes it worse, and what makes it better. The right expert is extremely helpful in this. How to find that expert I can't help you with, but I am very glad to have found Scott Neubauer at http://www.coastalhealthandfitness.com/ and happily recommend him.
I know from the people I have sent to him that the testimonials at http://www.coastalhealthandfitness.com/category/testimonials are much more typical than I would have believed possible. The typical experience seems to be that the patient walks in, describes symptoms, he asks the patient to move and observes, has them lie down, does a little body work, and then he gives 3 exercises that target the underlying issue. The patient goes away, adds those exercises to their routine and the problem goes away.
Personal examples that I have seen follow this problem include a knee problem that I had lived with most of my life, my step-son's back that was injured months earlier in football, or my mother-in-law's dowager's hump that had been there for 10 years. One visit, and a week later the problem was gone. A year ago it was still gone.
He likes to think aloud so there is a constant stream of what he is thinking as you go through this. (I also find him very funny, so the chatter is enjoyable.) Furthermore he is aware of his limits, if your problem may require something that he can't handle (eg x-rays), he is quick to tell you to go elsewhere first.
Wise words! One other thing to this is to always deload properly after a break. Just let the first session back be easy as, way easier than you might feel like. Letting go of the ego of pushing out numbers is key to learning to listen to the body.
You'll probably still feel it the next day nonetheless, when you can go again with a slight increment.
Keep this up and before you know it you're back to where you were.
Also this whole thread is great. Weightlifting is the best medicine bar none for this middle aged mostly desk bound programmer. It has immense mental health benefits as well.
> Weightlifting is the best medicine bar none for this middle aged mostly desk bound programmer.
Couldn't agree more. Loaded compound movements are just unreasonably effective. A nice added bonus (I find) is the therapeutic aspect of lifting. I think some of it is simply that it's almost a form of meditation in the sense that you block out all other thoughts and are focused on just on the movement and your own body.
Not to get too melodramatic about it, but squatting in particular teaches you mental toughness and is a great metaphor for life: you shoulder a burden and when you get down (the descent) you dig deep to come back up again.
I like that metaphor. Squatting is the integral part of my routine, either for heavy with 5x5 stronglifts or for reps/volume as a warm up when doing a shorter/lighter arm filler day session. For me the hardest exercise is still probably the deadlift, fortunately doesn't come up every day. ;)
I have a garage setup, so trying to work out 5-6 days a week by mixing it up. The rack, flat bench, Olympic barbell + ez bar, plates, rubber mats is truly everything I need - and all for less than a highest end phone. It will last my lifetime, and extend it as well. (I ride to work for cardio.)
And yes, the lifting feels like such a relief compared to dealing with family or work. It's amazing how much it can clear the mind.
I'm so jealous of your garage setup, it sounds awesome. Squats have been my "problem lift" since I started, but I still absolutely love them and am FINALLY making good progress again after changing some things. I have decent morphology for deadlifting so I'm a much better deadlifter than I am squatter (my max for DL is ~30% more than my best squat:(). Bench is absolutely abysmal haha.
Climbing outdoors on rock is definitely better and more beautiful/recharging. But for most this can't be done easily before/during/after work, so we do what we can
I've dealt with chronic back pain for years, and physical therapy has changed my life. But I had to have a certain period of time with pain free movement before I could progress.
I also had lots of signs and symptoms that things were wrong before it got really, really bad (I herniated a disc). Knowing how to understand when your body is not in alignment / moving right, and how to correct it, is what the GPs advice is really about. A lot of chronic back pain is due to muscular imbalances; too weak, too tight, too loose, not firing right. Exercises and body work can be done to help correct these things, to ease pain and return functionality.
Been there and I see it time and time again with other people, usually when they have back problems. It's sad to see. I'm empathetic and understand why people feel that way, but "putting your feet up" for an extended period of time is almost always the worst thing for you. If/when I get some minor tweak, I make sure to get back to moving as quickly as possible.
