It was a good run while it lasted. I mean, it was a period of close to a year where I had no issues with my back, no radiating pain, no movement impairment, and no wondering if I were to pick something up off the floor if I would get down there and wind up stuck. That ended last Friday when I was showing a client a simple squat exercise, got to the bottom of the movement and felt something pop, sending some shooting pain through my left hip and lumbar spine. I was still able to stand, and to be honest, it felt like a 5 out of 10 on the “oh my god I’m broken now” scale, and I’ve had much worse. I was still able to go through the day and it felt better the more I moved around. I couldn’t demonstrate a lot of different exercises, especially if it meant bending forward, but I could verbally get it going on like no one’s business.

The funny thing is that looking back I could have predicted it happening eventually. On Tuesday I did a heavy deadlift day, finished with 405 (about 95% of my max), then Thursday I sat in front of the computer or drove around the city all day, and the temperature decided to hit a season low. Combine this with the fact that it was the first client of the day bright and early at 6am, and you have a cold back ready to put up a massive fuss about a squat.

Today it’s feeling pretty good. I can still tell it’s restricted and not back to full Optimus Prime status, but I can squat and stand and walk and do a lot of different things. Couple this with an intense stubbornness and I’m going to still find a way to get a workout in. So today, I’m going to break down what kind of stuff I’m planning on doing while my spine isn’t happy with me, as well as a rationale for some of the exercises chosen.

Before we get into the actual exercises, there have to be some ground rules. First, any position involving me holding my torso in anything other than a vertical position would cause some pain and issues. Therefore, squats with flat feet, deadlifts, and hip press would have to wait for now. Additionally, mobility work for the hips and low back are things I’m going to avoid for the time being as the muscles are holding tension to replace other areas that aren’t as strong right now. Once those muscle relax on their own as function comes back to the affected areas, I’ll begin to work on mobility, but since my body is telling me something, I’m going to listen and try to not piss it off.

#1: Crosswalk Loaded Carries

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Vertical loading is alright, and judging by my run to the grocery store yesterday and hauling a grocery bag to the car, something that can also get some great core activation in a unilateral design. This is a way of building core strength back through the spine without causing any excessive motion or through using long lever arms which can increase the torque on the area.

#2: Rear-foot elevated Split Squats

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While maintaining a vertical torso I can still get some great leg work done without worrying about what is going on in my spine or in my hips. Additionally, the active stretch through the hip flexor helps to reduce the tension the psoas is placing on the lumbar discs, seeing as how it interdigitates directly with the anterior lumbar discs.

#3: Cat Camel

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Performed within a pain-free range of motion, this exercise can help create some mechanical pumping of the discs and muscles affected in the low back while not loading the spine or compressing injured structures. By moving within pain-free ranges, it can also help to increase the recruitment of muscles that have become down-regulated from the incidence of pain, which will help to sort of “reset the muscles,” and wake the muscles up again.

#4: Bird dogs with stick

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Another great “wake-up” exercise, this one gets the spinal and pelvic muscles to fire together in a coordinated manner to get the body stable and tense enough to prevent a lot of movement through the spine. The stick gives feedback as to how the stability through the entire system is looking, and if the stick falls off, you look like an idiot and everyone can laugh at you.

#5: Scap Retractions

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The lower fibers of the lats attach to the SI joint as well as all the way down the lumbar spine, which means heavy lat work like chinups or seated rows are going to give a lot of pull to an injured area, meaning the higher possibility of pain. Using a move like this with a lighter weight and focusing on getting the muscles to fire properly and feeling a good contraction that doesn’t cause an increase in pain can help to keep the lats active to help brace the area without overwhelming the weaker tissues until they have a chance to heal up.

#6: Quadruped Abdominal Draw-in

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The core muscles tend to decrease their strength when in pain, specifically the TvA. By doing activities that focus on getting the TvA to draw in without changing the spinal angle, I can get the core to function better and help speed the process up of healing the area due to the increased stability versus not having those muscles working. This one is way harder than it looks, especially if you have some back pain.

#7: Bench Press

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Yeah, I know, it has nothing to do with the low back, but I wanna and you can’t stop me!!

This is in no ways an exhaustive list of exercises I could do, but it’s what’s on tap for today, and depending on how I’m feeling tomorrow I may try a few other fun things, or I may just lean against a corner and cry my eyes out while popping Robaxacet like a Pez dispenser.

What about you? What do you do to workout around injuries? Drop a comment below and share the love.