What To Do When Injured, How To Train, Which Exercises Are Best?
I live in the world that lower back pain exists. It’s a world filled with many people. Some old. Some young. Some who are overweight. Some who are at a healthy weight. Some who are athletic. Some who have never watched sports much less played it.
To sum it up nicely: my experience with back pain is probably like yours. It is an unwelcome friend. It’s like a pesky mouse hanging around the yard waiting to gnaw on the cabbage and various cruciferous vegetables you painstakingly tilled and cared for over the last 5 odd weeks.
Considering this… it is best we learn how to deal with this nuisance. Of course it would be best to never see this nuisance to begin with; but like the night sky, just because you don’t see it at high noon doesn’t mean it ceases to exist.
We are better off building our defenses. Ensuring our body is like a fortress to what is most valuable. Protecting our treasures. Yet at the same time allowing our body the ability to move and explore in a way that allows us to enjoy life and everything worthwhile in our days.
(I’m in the middle of reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy so excuse me for having some fun with what will pass as this 31 year old bald gym owner’s ‘prose’).
So like the title warns, we will discuss 3 topics in relation to spinal health and performance.
Let’s begin with handling the adversity of being injured.
Getting Injured WILL Happen
Can someone please tell me where this myth of staying forever injury free originated? Seriously let’s put the Congressional House Oversight Committee on this one because we need answers.
This is my first pet peeve for a reason and we can get it done and over with quickly if you allow me to explain.
If you bought Tylenol in hopes to relieve your headache only for it to be exacerbated you would be frustrated there is no doubt. If you got the oil to supply your car with in line with your mechanic’s recommendation only for it rattle and bang upon startup in one week’s time you would be angry and with absolute just cause.
You know that headaches and car troubles are a fact of life. Instead of throwing your hands up to the will of the universe you engage with these trials accordingly.
The same needs to go with back injuries. You need to know they WILL happen no matter what physical shape you are in.
Do not confuse this with me saying you are doomed to be a decrepit old man or woman regardless of how you behave… quite the contrary.
What I am saying is very simple so listen carefully: Your spine WILL encounter issues. The severity of those issues are largely up to you but somewhat up to luck. How you handle said issues is ENTIRELY up to you.
I have trained many people over the years and this is a fact of life that really throws people for a loop. I can sympathize. You would imagine that I, as a professional in the damn field, never encounter these issues. NOPE. I am lucky in many regards… but the ability to stay clear of spinal issues (specifically lower back ones) is certainly not one of those regards.
What I did learn VERY early on, though, was that it serves absolutely no purpose to wallow in pity and just hope it corrects itself.
So you know you WILL get injured… now what?
The rules are pretty much the same no matter how severe or insignificant the injury is. You may feel like you ‘slipped a disc’ or maybe you just woke up feeling tight today… doesn’t matter.
So what are my rules?
Avoid pain increases
If there is a movement/exercise/position that increases the sensation of pain then we need to steer clear of that for the time being.
Stay active
Rest is important obviously… but movement is medicine and things won’t get better unless you are signaling to your body that you want it to move.
Rest
Like I said it is important. The caveat is obviously that you need to rest for a reason.
Start with SMALL dosages
This is in terms of sets, reps, time, distance, range of motion, weight etc.
These are general rules but as you learn more about yourself in the face of discomfort and injury you will start to create your own reliable playbook on how to go about these times.
I’ll pull the curtain back so you can see how I handled things in my own life recently.
Things were going good… until they weren’t
If I talked to you about injuries before then you probably heard me say how I have spent every year since freshman year of high school dealing with back injuries. I would say 4 or 5 of these were pretty damn severe. The others were small frustrations that most people run into at some point.
Well I can confidently tell you that I spent all of 2021, 2022, and 2023 injury free. I was on cloud nine to start this year off. I was finally training intensely again and quickly seeing strength levels I have not seen in a while. Then BAM… it happened.
My back just wasn’t right. Thankfully it wasn’t severe, at least on my severity scale, but I definitely had some things to deal with. Let’s get a lay of the land so you can put yourself in my shoes.
Sitting was fine unless I was even slightly forward
I could bend down until I hit about 10 degrees over then my back would severely spasm but once I got past that 10 degree mark it would be mostly fine again
Walking was fine until about the 30 minute mark where my hip would start shooting with pain
Laying down on my back was fine
Laying down on my stomach was fine but extending my chest upwards immediately resulted in pain
Exercise-wise everything was fine as long as it fell within the parameters stated above
So what did I do from here?
My main goal was to establish pain-free training right away. So this meant I favored more bodyweight exercises for a lower risk. I slowed my tempo WAY down to ensure absolute control over every inch of movement. I did not shy away from ‘back’ exercises but I did pay close attention to range of motion and when things resulted in little issues during the movement.
In between training sessions I tried to be mindful of resting positions that didn’t cause my back pain when I got out of it. Now I need to note something here. Historically this meant I would spend A LOT of time laying on my stomach because it was one of the few positions my back would feel relief in and it wouldn’t tighten up afterwards. This was actually NOT the case this time around. I cannot stress enough how important it is that I had to learn in real time that my usual approach in this regard would’ve hurt… so I had to cut the ego and avoid my usual go-to resting position. This time around I spent more time sitting and laying on my back.
I did my best to only utilize these resting positions for 10-20 minutes at a time before being active again. When I say active I don’t mean specific exercises I just mean interacting with my children, doing chores, being outside… just normal stuff.
After the first 2 or 3 days of this I felt that I was ready to engage with the ‘painful’ positions again.
So now I did exercises that would expose me to the ‘pain’ but I did it INCREDIBLY slowly and carefully so that the pain was never severe.. it was well within the range of tolerance. After a few days of this my tolerance of this was enough so I could move further and smoother and the pain was quickly subsiding.
I was lucky enough that this process is all I needed to do for a couple of weeks and then I was pretty much back to normal.
So now, let’s develop a guideline of sorts for how you should train in regard to this topic. We’ll be going into the weeds a bit on different exercises and modalities so buckle up pal.
Let’s get right to the fun stuff
Everyone always wants to know what exercises to do. I’ll satisfy that question if you promise me you will stick around to the end of the article to put all of this in the proper context.
Do you promise?
Really?
Are you sure?
Ok then… you promised.
I’m going to start off by just rattling off a bunch of exercises. Don’t get carried away with excitement… proper training is ALL ABOUT context and the ability to adapt. The inherent nature of just reading words off of a screen or piece of paper makes the whole concept of “context” harder to digest… so you’ll have to be patient with me. Let’s dive in.
To make things a bit easier to envision we will break down our exercises into 5 categories.
Flexion (bending forward)
Extension (bending backward)
Twisting (rotating the spine somewhere)
Side Bending (duh)
Rigidity (doing anything while keeping the spine from moving at all)
Flexion Focused Exercises
Jefferson Curl
Extended Situp
L-Sit variations
Extension Focused Exercises
Back Extensions
Extended Situp
Backbends
Bridges
Twisting Focused Exercises
Vast majority of these exercises are simply going to be adding a twist movement to another position/exercise
example would be doing a lunge and then twisting the spine at the bottom position
Standing, Laying, then Sitting Twists are the foundation of this category
Windmill
Rotational Deadlifts
Side Bending Focused Exercises
Standing Side Bends
Windmill
Rigidity Focused Exercises
Deadlift variations
Squat
Walking
Running
Carries of all kinds
Overhead Press
Planks
Take A Beat
I just threw a bunch of what may or may not be gibberish at you.
HERE IS WHAT I DO NOT WANT YOU TO DO.
I don’t want you to add like 10-20 of these to your routine and constantly switch up what you are doing week after week.
If you know me by now you know that the foundation of any routine is exactly that: ROUTINE.
Meaning that you need to have a repeatable approach to make progress.
I recommend looking for the low hanging fruit.
Is there something that currently gives you pain? Is there a severe weakness in strength or movement quality on any of these exercises? Is there something you simply have never done?
These questions can often lead you to a great starting point.
The final section of this article is going to be going into the abstract a bit… so put on the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack composed by the great Nobuo Uematsu and pay attention.
How To Train For Lifelong Back Resiliency
Let me just address something really quick. I love using the word resiliency in this context because it is the thing everyone wants but no one says it outright. You don’t want a super strong back that can’t bend because you will inevitably get injured. You don’t want a super flexible back that is weak because you will inevitably get injured. You want a system of checks and balances (like the good ol’ USA…oh no POLITICS!)
I can sum up my approach with this training with one very simple idea:
Constant striving for both improvement and perfection.
I promise I will explain so don’t hit me with a “what the fuck does that mean”.
The idea is simple in that when we are training we should be juggling the 2 things equally. So many people make this monumental mistake in training generally but especially so when training with “injury prevention”, or anything akin, in mind.
If you are working on improving your spines ability to bend forward you will need to have periods when you are really focused on pushing the envelope and getting out of your comfort zone. Then you will need to have periods of time when you are not pushing the envelope with intensity and range of motion but maybe you are super critical with the control and quality of movement you are displaying.
I’m sorry if this sounds a bit too ethereal but it’s how my brain works. I have found that this is the best question to go back to time and time again in your training. If you can confidently answer yes to “am I trying to get better performance AND quality?” then you are on the right track and there is no need to overanalyze.
Now let’s talk about practicality so we can properly envision things before I leave you to explore the world of spinal domination.
Speed? Range? Load? Rigidity? Where am I? Who are you people?
Those first 4 questions are the things I want you to focus on in your training.
Improve your ability to move fast AND slow.
Improve your ability move through more and more range of motion.
Improve your ability to handle excess loads in any and all exercises.
Improve your ability to hold a given position in any exercise.
If you do those 4 things I GUARANTEE that your spine will be more resilient than you can imagine.
These are things we do at my gym.
We will work hard on squats so the spine learns how to hold a position and not give way to exterior loads.
We also work hard on standing forward folds so that the spine learns that bending at each vertebrae is actually okay and can be done with confidence and strength.
We also work hard on flexing/extending fast in movements such as KB Swings, Jefferson Curls, and back extensions.
We also work hard on improving our range of motion on literally EVERYTHING.
The bad news is that you will never reach the end of the road on any of this.
The good news is that if you stay on the road you will end up better than you could’ve imagined.
Take Action, Believe
Coach Dill