How I hurt my back with Deadlifts, and how I fixed it. With Deadlifts.

How I hurt my back with Deadlifts, and how I fixed it. With Deadlifts.

Part 1.

A few years back my training took a big hit. While warming up for deadlifts I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. It didn’t feel like any muscle soreness-type of pain that I was used to over the years of training. This was something different. And I didn’t even have that much weight on the bar yet, 140 kg, a weight that was merely 80% of my work set weight. I decided to leave the deadlifts and moved on with the workout without much concern. However, after this training session the pain didn’t disappear, rather it reminded me of itself daily every time I would bend over or if I did any lower body lifts at the gym.

Minor aches and pains were a norm for me back then. I thought, “If you’re truly training hard, these things are inevitable.” However, these minor pains usually passed by after a short rest, and I would be back to training all out in no time.

For few weeks, even a month’s time I dragged myself on with the pain, until I finally decided to go see a doctor about it. Turned out I had a ruptured intervertebral disc in two different spots in my spine. No more heavy lifting; squats, deadlifts, Olympic lifting, all could be forgotten from that moment on. Got to admit, that killed my training motivation for a good amount of time. All my favorite movements were banned. Thankfully I was still able to bench press.

By the way, that was pretty much all the advice I got. I was told to avoid heavy lower body lifts and to focus more on training my core muscles and glutes. How? How much? How often? Why? Probably should have asked these questions, but at the time I was too bummed to think about it, so I never got those answers.

For a very long time I predominantly trained my upper body and did some light and useless junk training for my lower body. My back pain disappeared over time, but never fully. Even small weights in the squats and especially in the deadlifts and other hinging movements brought back the pain and it would bother me for couple days at a time. It took a long time before I made any change to the matter. Longer than I dare to admit.

I had poor technique. Very good technique to many voyers, but a keen-eyed strength coach would have noticed the errors.

 

”Brace yourself”

Even though I knew how to take a breath in and how to use a lifting belt quite well during heavy lifts, I still had one element that was not up to par. Bracing the core. Good bracing technique helps to keep your back straight during lifting, hence stabilizing the spine. Since I didn’t handle the bracing correctly and relied heavily on the lifting belt, especially during the heavy lifts my back would occasionally tilt, therefore putting more pressure on specific spots in my vertebral discs.

What if my core was simply too weak? Well, yes and no. My abdominals (rectus abdominis specifically) were quite strong. I could perform nearly 20 strict toes-to-bar raises, ‘Dragon flag’ was no issue and I was able to do 100 sit-ups on the GHD in under 5 minutes. Last one more reflective on endurance capacity, but however, strength should have been there. Bracing strength was weak.

 

How does one perform the bracing technique correctly?

Essentially, bracing is a technique, not only strength. Therefore, it can be practiced anywhere. A good bracing is achieved in four steps:

1.      Stand as tall and vigorous as you can.
2.      Breath in, using your diaphragm, into your belly.
3.      Squeeze your abdominals while bringing your ribs down towards your hips.
4.    Squeeze your glutes, while bringing your hips under your shoulders.

Now your core should feel very robust. If someone were to punch you in your stomach, they’d break their wrist. Now I don’t suggest you go out and test this, but the image might be helpful while practicing the bracing technique.

Figure 1. Bracing mechanism increases intra-abdominal pressure

When you are training your core muscles, aim to pick exercises that include proper core bracing. I don’t believe that these are the only exercises you should perform. You core has multiple other functions but prioritize those with proper bracing action.

Linear and rotational dynamic exercises are the most common ones you see performed. These include sit-ups, crunches and twisting movements. Yet, these two are only a tip of the iceberg of core training. As you might imagine, none of the mentioned don’t even include the bracing technique very well.

Isometric anti-extension and anti-lateral flexion movements do that extremely well. Isometric movements don’t include any movement in your spine. Therefore, you get to practice bracing technique carefully. Your job is to basically resist any movement from happening in that area. Exercises such as farmer’s walks and bunch of other strongman-style carry movements include anti-extension element. Doing the same exercises with single arm would be categorized as anti-lateral flexion exercises. Bodysaw is an excellent and extremely hard exercise to do with minimal equipment. Other great exercises to do with bodyweight are ‘Dragon flag’ and L-sit.

There are a bunch of exercises you can choose for dynamic versions. Lying Knee-in and Hanging Leg raises work great and work the hip flexors also. On the more difficult end is the ‘Ab wheel’, great one to add load if you can. For dynamic lateral flexion my absolute favorite is side bend on a 45-degree bench or on a GHD.

 

”Huge Glute importance”

You can recognize a strong lifter by their big glutes. Well, maybe not just the size of the glutes, since they can be grown by “pump training”, but by strong glutes!

I never really had a butt. I only cared about, how strong the squat was, and deadlift was merely a secondary lift, even though, biomechanically I am more suited to deadlifting! That is was you get from watching hours on end Olympic weightlifting videos. Since, the deadlift was less interesting lift and the squat was king, training the posterior chain was always left on the back burner. Work sets for squats were something between 14 to 16 sets per week. However, the back side would barely get ten good sets each week.

Now, since I did not have much to sit on, literally, and I didn’t have much else to do lower body training wise, I started to do more basic hinging movements. Hip thrusts and glute bridges were my top picks at first since those didn’t cause any lower back pain afterwards. Stiff legged deads were also a good alternative to throw in every once in a while, but sometimes they’d bother me if I didn’t load them correctly.

For a long while I did a lot of glute work, mostly at high rep ranges, between 10 to 20 reps, sometimes even higher. However, anytime I would try to pick up something heavier and tried squats and deadlifts, not to even mention Olympic lifts, my back pain would flare up.

                                            

1-legged Hip thrusts are a great exercise to pump up those glutes.

  

“Enter Tempo”

I have to give credit where credit is due. During the summer 2020 I was interning at a strength coach Yunus Barisik, and during that internship I finally broke free from my back issues. In those three months I learned how to properly manage loads in training and got some very stellar knowledge of training and periodization.

Back to the story.

Before anyone picks up anything heavy and starts moving it around, it’s probably smart to start with lighter loads. Yeah, light weights are easy, I know, don’t nobody need that. Therefore, you got to make lifting harder some other way. Enter lifting tempo.

For the uninitiated, lifting tempo means how long each phase of the lift should last. Maybe the most common style of programming tempo is the four-digit tempo prescription made popular by Charles Poliquin, one of the best strength coaches ever. In this style the first number always refers to the eccentric portion of the lift, the lowering part. Second number denotes a pause between eccentric and concentric portion (stretched position), the third denoting the concentric part (lifting) and the fourth number denoting a pause between concentric and the eccentric (contracted position).

For example, in the stiff legged deadlift, tempo 4210 would be performed as follows: Start the lift by lowering the weight for a four second count, hold the stretched position for two seconds, and lift the weights up in one second. There should be no pausing in the top position other than taking shortly a breath in. During the lowering and the stretched portions, you should try to maximally contract the working muscles.

Stiff-legged Deadlifts

For chin-ups tempo would be prescribed exactly in the same manner, even though the lift itself begins with the concentric portion. I want to also note that the concentric portion is probably always best done with maximal acceleration. This way you are maximally recruiting all muscle fibers in the working muscle.

Tempo-style training gives you an opportunity to focus extra carefully on the lifting technique, while keeping the loads fairly low and training still feels like training. It’s damn difficult. You can expect at least a 10% decrease in loads compared to same length sets with no tempo.

You’re probably thinking, how did I actually program this? I will tell you, later.

Thanks!

Mitja

Resources:

 

Vincent, Heather K. PhD, FACSM; Vincent, Kevin R. MD, PhD, FACSM, FAAPMR Abdominal Bracing for Minimizing Excessive Pelvic Motion During Running, Current Sports Medicine Reports: April 2018 - Volume 17 - Issue 4 - p 111

Maeo S, Takahashi T, Takai Y, Kanehisa H. Trunk muscle activities during abdominal bracing: comparison among muscles and exercises. J Sports Sci Med. 2013;12(3):467-474. Published 2013 Sep 1.

Schuenke, M., Herman, J., et al. Early-Phase Muscular Adaptations in Response to Slow-Speed Versus Traditional Resistance-Training Regimens. European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2012. Published Ahead of Print

Burd, N., Andrews, R., et al. Muscle Time Under Tension During Resistance Exercise Stimulates Differential Muscle Protein Sub-Fractional Synthetic Responses In Men. Journal of Physiology.  2012. 590 (2), 351-362.

Scott CB. The effect of time-under-tension and weight lifting cadence on aerobic, anaerobic, and recovery energy expenditures: 3 submaximal sets. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2012 Apr;37(2):252-6. doi: 10.1139/h11-158. Epub 2012 Mar 8. PMID: 22401781.