Lower Back Injury Protocol & Pain Approaches
You were deadlifting, moving furniture, or fumbled during your day and now you can barely walk...don't panic - there is a *genuine* solution...
Contents:
Common myths surrounding back injuries
Pain vs Damage
What to do when you “tweak your back”
Intra-session “Back-Fix Protocol”
“Mid-term” adjustments to programming and life
The Lower Back Injury Approach
Low Back Injuries
“Popping your back” while deadlifting is one of the most common fears and mild injuries individuals experience while lifting weights. It is also a common occurrence in everyday life, such as during horseplay with your children, housework, or even slipping on water or ice, which can cause your back to "lock up".
Firstly, I want to acknowledge the emotional and physical experience you are going through. As someone who has suffered from this scenario many times, I understand how debilitating it can be.
However, if you recently experienced a back lock-up, do not panic or despair. There is a pool of information and methods available to help you overcome this issue effectively.
This is not clickbait. It's a genuine, evidence-based, and time-tested approach to handling lower back injuries from the moment they occur. I and my colleagues have used this approach many times.
Today, we will clarify what is actually causing the intense pain most of the time, versus what people fear has happened when they "tweak their low back". We will also provide a protocol to help you quickly recover up to 80% or more within the same workout session in most cases.
By reading this post in full, you will be well-educated on your current "injury" and its causes, how to manage it, and how to recover fully in record time. You will also learn how to manage these situations if they ever arise in the future for yourself, your friends and family, or your personal clients.
Firstly, let's cover what occurs during a common "low back injury"...
Correlations of “Pain vs Damage”
A central concept to understand is what pain itself is…
Pain is not a consequence of damage so much as a protective mechanism our body possesses to prevent damage.
A common response to this is to ask: “If pain isn’t a consequence of damage - then why does it hurt when I am clearly injured or unwell?”.
The answer is once again obvious in hindsight…it is because when an area is damaged, pain can prevent you from performing any actions that may result in further damage until it is healed. The reason for the pain response is to alert you that there is a potential issue and the pain will arise acutely in order to prevent further action you may not be ready for.
Why is this almost “semantic” conclusion significant?
Because it informs us of the fact that pain is about protection and not necessarily tissue damage. Individuals very frequently have some tissue alteration, “damage”/injury, or other “problem” that is present upon witness (MRI or eye test) but suffer from zero symptoms whatsoever.
This can sometimes make pain an erratic and misleading sensation when it comes to our internal diagnostics of our health status.
Many individuals have heard of “phantom limb pain” where one who has an amputated limb can sometimes feel pain responses to an appendage that no longer exists.
If there was a perfect correlation between tissue “damage” and pain experience then these cases would not exist or be much more rare, rather than very common (as they actually are).
It’s worth noting that situations like this are both common experiences & common knowledge amongst individuals. Experiencing an injury that may not have healed at all (such as an ACL tear) and then the pain dissipating over time without any of the injury actually being repaired is extremely normal even if it is not every individual’s case.
This understanding of pain’s nature not being a perfect 1:1 correlation with damage is forgotten and usually unrealized in the average trainee that this means phenomenon can go both ways.
This means pain can ALSO be present when there is no damage at all…
To reiterate, this is because pain is meant to protect your body from potential damage rather than signal damage itself.
Though this is not always the case of course, and pain is not something that should be entirely ignored (obviously), my goal here is to help you understand that factors involving much more than actual injury to the body can result in pain - and this goes double for territories of the body that bear a high density of nerves and nervous system activity (i.e. the lower back and spinal regions).
Put simply: Pain is simply your nervous system setting off the “pain alert”.
This is much like our car alarms - which occasionally go off despite no one breaking into our vehicle and we simply opened the door a certain way at the time, or sat on our key alarm buttons, etc.
Myths about Back Pain & Injuries
“So, Hybrid, how does this relate to my back issue? I was lifting heavy, felt a pop in my back, and now I can’t bend over…SURELY, I have damaged my spine.”
Before we cover the steps to take if this has been your recent issue…let’s quickly summarize common myths specifically about back injuries and pain that you can take immediate comfort in. These notes are well researched, and backed by both peer reviewed evidence & outcome tested application:
As covered above, back pain - even when very sharp, intense, and suddenly occurring during strenuous activity - does not mean your spine is damaged, and certainly does not mean that it is damaged in a serious way.
Noise, or feeling of a “pop” sound in the back is often perceived as a frightening indicator of a serious injury, however it is usually not a tissue that has broken or been seriously damage and often is simply facet joints or other muscular contractions present in the back when the protective mechanism went off. So the “pop” often felt is not what most believe it is to be.
If a spinal disc is bulging, herniated, or otherwise compromised, the overwhelming majority (9/10+ cases) heal spontaneously on their own with no necessary surgery or treatment. Sometimes even years later when injury is persistent.
In cases where both tissue “injury” does actually occur & disc tissue has not been fully reabsorbed back into its exact former position, the correlation of bulging, herniated, or otherwise altered discs and actual pain experience is still actually very low.
Most individuals actually possess a bulging, or “imperfect” disc and have no idea and no actual causal symptoms related to it. In fact, human spines possessing disc shifts like this are entirely normal and an expected part of our lifecycle and this does not at all dictate or determine function or overall spinal health.
Back pain, especially chronic, are heavily affected by factors far outside the health status of the spine, including mental health, broad physical and psychological health + wellbeing factors, dehydration status, nutrition elements, injury risk or chronic injury belief systems of the individual, as well as overall physical training stress during the week for the athlete.
Finally, after reading all of this - the single question most struggle with reconciling is:
“If my spine/back is not seriously injured…then why did I feel a sudden sharp feeling and immediate crippling shooting pain in my low back during a strenuous activity?”
The answer is because your nervous system, due to a conflation of many different measurable and immeasurable factors occurring at once, happened to sense a stressor on the lower back and an ancient protective piece of our evolutionary development sent our nervous system in to “defense” mode and seized up our lower back in an effort to protect it from perceived potential damage (see sections above if you need review).
Keyword: PERCIEVED POTENTIAL DAMAGE
This means that there is not necessarily anything wrong with you - and even in an acute injury to the back did occur, you have no reason to panic due to the information mentioned above.
Factors that can lead to these incidences do not need to be related to the spine at all (as mentioned prior) and can occur due to a myriad of factors that are often not even effectively measurable.
This also means that injuries like this are NOT fully predictable, and are not merely blamed upon an exercise itself, its minute elements of execution (“form”) or any common accusations that limit our ability to push our bodies or move with confidence.
All this being said - lets finally cover what do to immediately following a “twinge” in your back during any activity even if you feel you are nearly incapable of walking or even looking down at your phone.
Initial “Emergency” Assessment
As we have covered extensively, the lower back is not typically injured in common incidents. However, in order to cover all potential scenarios, it is important to address emergency factors.
Keep in mind that the chances of a serious injury are exceptionally unlikely.
If you experience loss of bowel function or complete loss of functional use of a limb after a back injury, you should contact a physician.
Shooting pain in the leg or back is not a sign of the above issues, and they are rarely actually occurring. However, for liability and safety reasons, it is important to mention them.
It is important, psychologically speaking, to not assume you have an emergency issue when you do not. Although you may experience intense pain, discomfort, and limited movement, you most likely only have a back tweak and not a catastrophic injury, which is more common in major car accidents and other serious events, not from lifting weights.
Full Protocol for Restoring Function to a “Locked up” Back After “Injury”
Here is a detailed elaboration of the steps to restore function to a "locked up" back after an injury:
(These steps can be progressed as quickly as all in the same session up to using them over the course of a week - depending on your ability to move & willingness to continue)