Healing
I’ve had a back problem for almost two months now. I’m don’t usually get many injuries, so it really surprised me when it came about. I’d taken some time off from the gym over Christmas, and was feeling a little stiff. Coming back to work in the first week of January, I was a typical egotistical bloke and tried to work out just as hard as I had before I took my break.
Big mistake.
After doing a few squats and chin ups, I thought I’d pull a deadlift. The deadlift is one of my favourite exercises, and involves pulling an olympic barbell loaded with as much as weight as you can lift off the floor, and standing up straight. Like this. I’ve done hundreds of them and it gives me a great feeling of power, because you tend to be able to lift a pretty heavy weight. I loaded up the bar with my previous 3 rep max (140kg), going for two reps. Using an over/under grip to stop the bar slipping at that weight, I pulled it. It hurt my back a bit - I think I rounded it slightly. When I put the weight down, I felt like I’d damaged something, just a little.
So what did I do? I did it again, of course!
In an amazing show of wisdom, I decided that I needed to make sure I didn’t develop a muscle imbalance by doing a single rep. You see, with an over/under grip, you should alternate which palm is facing you and which palm is not so that each side of the body develops strength in the same places, at the same rate. The second rep hurt a bit more.
I guess because I’m not particularly injury prone, I didn’t think about going to the physio straight away. I’ve been a little sore before, and this seemed no different. When it was still hurting after two weeks, I decided it was a bit different. The first physiotherapist I went to, a bloke at Browns Plains, wasn’t any good. He couldn’t tell me what was wrong with it, and didn’t give me any specific rehab exercises. He pretty much told me that it would get better on its own.
Two more weeks on, and I could swear it was getting worse, not better. I’d been avoiding doing a lot of things in the gym, and whenever I slightly hyper-extended my back, it screamed with pain. I really wanted to know if I’d caused some major damage. Enough people have back injuries that stick with them throughout their lives, and I’d rather get this sorted out sooner or later. On a recommendation, I went to Axis Physio, and ended up being treated by Brooke there. She was very good. She told me what I’d done to my back, checked my flexibility and sore points, and gave specific rehab exercises and stretches to sort it out. I had compressed one of the discs in my lower spine. A disc sits between two vertebrae, and acts as a flexible cushion between them (or something like that). I probably stuffed it up at the gym, and prevented it from healing by having bad posture in my chair at work, and doing too many crunches at the gym - some exercises can be bad for you!
After a couple of weeks of treatment and a range of rehab exercises, I’m about 80% “back” together. (*badoom*). The scariest part about the whole ordeal is that if I hadn’t sought treatment, and continued the way I was, I would probably have ended up with a permanent back problem. There’s enough people with those out there already.