Scared of reinjury

[youngamerican68]

A month ago I pulled a muscle in my lower back on the leg press machine. The pull happened when I was lowering the weight and allowed my knees to come to close to my chest. My flexibility is horrid so I believe bringing the weight down too far caused the tear. Bill have you seen similar injuries on the leg press? Could the cause have been tight hamstrings? I am trying to figure out the biomechanics of such a pull. I have returned to the gym and am lifting at about 80% of my intensity before the pull but I don't know what to do for my leg workouts out of fear I will pull the muscle again. Hoping I could get some advice on how to proceed. I did go to the doc after the injury and he said it was a muscle pull with no disc involvement.

thanks

[UConnJulie]

I would steer clear of the leg press machine ... or any machine for that matter!! Machines force abnormal movement in the majority of persons. You would be better off doing varieties of squats, lunges and deadlifts. Start with bodyweight ... have someone really check your form ... try different types like goblet squats, wide out drop squats, front squats, dynamic lunges, walking lunges, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, single leg deadlift ... etc ... the variations are nearly endless. Once you are moving with good form and increased mobility (I'd suspect that your hips are the primary culprit) then you can add weight.
If you don't have it, Magnificent Mobility would be good for you to get for the dynamic mobility and warmup drills.

[Keith Scott]

Regardless of what you do next (and I agree to steer clear of the leg press), you need to let that heal the right way. If it is truly a muscle strain, then you will need a couple of weeks before you go back and start training again (minimum). You will have associated spasm, and stiffness with the injury so gentle stretching of hip flexors, hip rotators, hamstrings, and low back should help. Go slow and let pain be your guide. If any of it hurts or makes things seem worse, stop doing it.

When you are healed up and feeling better, get a copy of MM (as Julie said)

[Zig]

If you actually tore a muscle in that area, depending upon your age and other factors (like the degree of size of the tear) it could take you as long as 8 weeks to heal. If you are 18, it could be as little as 3 weeks, for every 10 years add few days. But that's based on not reinjuring the area. If you return to lifting before it has actually healed, you may find ways to position your self or unload that area, so that it doesn't bother you, but that doesn't mean that it has healed.

Your hip mobility can be factor, I don't think you have to stay away from any exercise if you do it correctly. But because we all have our own little weaknesses, and biomechanical issues, 100 people can take one exercise and do it 100 different ways, even something as simple as a leg press.

An increase in the mobility of your hips will require hamstring, glute, hip flexor strength and mobiilty. Lateral hip mobility is also important and often neglected. In addition, you may have a strength imbalance, right leg to left leg, which can often be misinterpreted. Fatigue can make us think an area is weaker, when its really tired from being so much stronger than another area. So basically, you'll need to rest the injured area.

But answer a question for us. Which side is the injury, right or left? Describe the area, where you feel pain. You said the injury occured when you were coming down. What do you feel now that you have returned?

Best wishes.

[youngamerican68]

Thanks everybody for taking the time to reply. Your posts were very informative. Zig the injury occured slightly above the beltline and was focused in the center of that area with some pain off to the left. For a few days following the injury the spasms were so bad that I couldn't differentiate where the pain was centered because my whole lower back would spasm. For the past 2 weeks I've been doing lighter squatting and worked some on the hack squat machine. I would say there is slight tenderness the following day but no pain. I was wondering if wearing a belt might be helpful on leg exercises for the time being.

thanks

[Physioguy]

Your back will thank you if you never perform leg presses again! This is doubly true if you lack flexibility.

Sure, most people can handle a decent amount of weight, but it is not a functional movement pattern, and it appears to be a good way to herniate a disc.