That’s the story of my lower back rehab. Sometimes in order to progress further in your training you have to regress and work on the basics first. After you got that down, you’d be surprised how much further you can go. Heal the pain, regain stability and work your way back up. I think everyone should follow these steps before getting into high level movements and workouts.
1. Be pain free – listen to your body. If there’s pain, get to the root of the problem.
2. Be mobile – assess and address any compromised movement with joint mobility moves.
3. Be able to stabilize your body – A building cannot support itself without a proper foundation. Likewise, your body needs to be of a sound structure. You should be able handle your own body weight in proper form before adding a load (weights)
4. Ingrain basic motor and movement patterns – moving effectively and safely through a range of motion.
5. Maintain and improve strength, conditioning, and fitness levels based on your goals –
Up until last weekend, my back was feeling pretty good so I began getting back into the flow of working out. I was off any serious training over the last 4-5 weeks and just doing mostly joint mobility work. That stuff really is the fountain of youth, but during that time I really missed moving fast and working out. Seeing that the weather was really nice and sunny that weekend, I ended up rollerblading a total of 24kms (9km on Sat, 14km on Sun). It felt amazing at the time but come Monday, my back pain relapsed and I woke up with the worst back pain ever. The pain was so great that I literally had a hard time turning and pulling myself out of bed that morning. Clearly, I overworked my body that weekend.
My friend Funk Roberts had recommended I check out FITS gym in Toronto. They are a one stop athletic development centre specializing in physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, sports therapy, and training elite athletes. If you are ever in pain, I highly recommend going here! I went for a couple of sessions and was literally healed within a week. The sport therapists here are great at what they do and I was amazed at how fast my recovery time was. They helped me release the tension in my back using trigger point therapy and some simple diaphragmatic breathing exercises to help strengthen the abdominal wall. Just in time for my birthday weekend too! This weekend I played about 7 hours of beach volleyball and was able to run and dive for the ball without any problems.