I'm just starting out on NROL - Break-in and did Workout 1A with no problems (besides some soreness this morning of course!!) my concern is the deadlifts.
Last December I ruptured a disc in my lower back (and have had lower back muscle spasms before) so I am a bit nervous about anything that involves the lower back. I was watching someone do deadlifts and it looked like it might not be the best for me.
I plan to try with just the bar and see how it goes, but I'd like to know if there are substitutes I can also try.
If you do them properly, you shoudl feel them in your hips, thighs, and glutes, not so much in your back. I was a bit scared of them too, at first, but I found a trainer at my gym to show me the proper way to do them (and I watched a lot of youtube videos describing the proper technique) and I didn't have any back issues at all.
If you round your back at all, it will hurt your lower back. Make sure you don't lift so much that you can't keep an arch in your back. Other than that, strengthening those supporting muscles might be just what you need.
I hadn't lifted heavy with deadlifts until I did this program. One thing I learned early on is that, when you start with just the bar, or light weights, you have to rack the bar about 8" off the ground to get the proper starting position. When I tried to deadlift the bar-only off the ground, I couldn't do it without rounding my back. And believe me, I felt it the next day.
Once I racked the bar to the proper height off the floor (about 8" off the floor, or the height the bar would sit at when loaded with Olympic-sized plates), I could do the deadlift properly WITHOUT rounding my back. Even after I began adding weights, it didn't bother my back one bit the following day. My heaviest deadlift thus far is 165 lbs. (Bar, plus the two big 45lb plates, plus two 15 lbs plates) I do, of course, feel a tremendous CONTRACTION, in my lower back, and really just about my whole body, while DOING the lift. But it's this contraction that will hold your spine in neutral position and protect it.
Nonetheless, since the DL DOES, indeed, put a COMPRESSIVE load on your spine, with your disk issues, you should definitely talk to your doctor and get his/her permission to do the deadlift, at least with heavy weights.
I have a client with congenital disk degeneration, and his doctor does NOT allow him to put compressive loads on his spine. For him, we do just about all his free weight exercises in a supported position (e.g. seated or lying on a bench) or with weight-stack machines (e.g. leg presses in lieu of bar squats).
Talk to your doc, and ask him/her for suggested modifications if necessary.
- Jennifer
__________________
ACE-Certified Personal Trainer Since 2002
Lifetime Member of WeightWatchers
If you've never lifted before, it might be best if you did a few weeks of swiss ball crunches and back extentions first before moving on to deadlifting. This will strengthen your core enough to be able to do the deadlift exercises without stressing your lower back too much.
If your gym has the Cybex back extention machine, that's a good place to start. however, don't do crunches without back extentions and vice versa.
Get clearance from your medical doctor first just to be safe...
you should actually practice abdominal bracing (might take a while to properly do this), which is important for the entire lift. You should focus on getting good abdominal bracing before even trying to deadlift. Also follow the recommendation about racking the bar at a proper height and progress with weight as long as form isn't compromised (I would keep it light). Crunches and machine back extentions are not recommended since the torso has to keep an isometric (rigid w/o moving) contraction during the entire lift. Obviously, do not perform the lift if you're having pain just getting into the start position.
How have you been able to bend down and pick up objects since your back injury?
Thanks for all the advice! I will call the Dr today and see what he says.
WalkingD- Yes, I can bend and pick up things no problem. I have also been doing Yoga since I was able to after the injury- which has really helped increase mobility. I am back to 100%, just don't want to cause any new problems.
That's good to hear. Once you get clearance.....just follow the recommendations stated earlier. Just progress conservatively with weight as a safety measure. I'm sure you'll be doing high reps as well, so make sure to stop your lifts once you feel like your form is starting to suffer. People have injured themselves trying to finish out their set even though they are fatigued.
OK- Dr. said I should have no problems lifting heavy weights as long as I'm careful and make sure I work up to it. Still - I am chicken, hear me skwawk!
So I am going to be taking it very slow and follow my gut on this one.
I was totally chicken about the deadlifts, had no idea how to do them properly and had never tried them prior to NROLW. Initially, I was doing them with those little barbell things with dinky weights at the ends. 45 lbs, and it seemed hard AND seemed to stress my back. Lucky for me, the owner of my gym and her hubby and competitive deadlifters, and she pointed me towards the proper equipment...using those gigantic weight plates rather than the little ones. And she showed me what the correct form was. So due to the plate size, the bar is up a lot more and in a better starting place. Once she taught me the proper form, I realized it was a whole different thing from what I thought, and I've progressed in Stage 1 up as high as 145 lbs so far, which totally amazes me. I was not a beginning exerciser going into this....so my legs were already somewhat strong from my previous weight programs. You definitely need a certain level of strength in your legs, then you must have the proper form so your legs do the lifting and not your back. I think if your legs aren't strong enough you might default to the back, thus injuring it. I'm still slightly nervous about deadlifts, and I'm very very careful. When I move up my weights at this point, I go up in 10 lb. increments (that's 10 lbs. total, only 5 lbs per side). No big jumps for me, so no surprises. I've learned that if I can lift a certain weight, 5 more lbs per side will still be liftable for me. And when I move up to a higher weight, I only do a rep or two at that weight. Then I won't try it again for a week or so.
In 2/07 I had back spasms and had to rehab my back (see the post above this related to back pain, I put info on how I fixed my back in that thread).
CMCM- I think it was one of your posts in the injury/rehab board that got me thinking that I would give it a try after all. I saw a video somebody posted for proper form (which looks just like the description in the book, but now that I've seen it, I get it a little better) I just think I'll start slow. I see the point of using the big plates, so I guess I'll try the smallest big plate (if that makes any sense) and see how that goes.
I'm going to the gym tomorrow at lunch to do Workout 2A so I'll do some more research on it beforehand.
THis weekend I'm planning on going to pick up the book on fixing your own back that everyone speaks so highly of.
Substitute for deadlifts- back issues
Linear Mode
