How To Stop Lower Back Pain From Lifting Weights
Lifting weights is more than just a way for you to keep in shape. It’s a way that you can feel great, it gives you energy and helps you feel confident in yourself.
But what do you do if you have lower back pain from lifting weights, and your favorite hobby starts to create a huge problem that makes it hard to move freely, difficult to sleep, and leaves you in agony while you work the next day?
Fortunately, lower back pain can be cured, so you don’t need to stop lifting weights or doing your CrossFit workouts, and you don’t have to rely on painkillers to get through the post-workout soreness.
What Causes Lower Back Pain When Lifting Weights, And How To Fix It?
There are many causes of lower back pain, but for our patients, these are the 3 most common causes:
Improper Lifting Technique
An obvious reason for lower back pain when lifting weights is poor technique or form.
Lifting weights can highlight poor movement patterns such as a faulty squat pattern, so if your body isn’t moving right to begin with resulting in extra stress on your lower back, adding weights to the equation is only going to make the problem bigger.
Also, certain exercises are very complex movements, such as a snatch or power clean, so if you haven’t mastered the movement, but are rushing to add weight to the bar, you are heading towards a lot of lower back pain.
Finally, when you work out hard, and really push your limits, your technique inevitably breaks down. During a tough WOD, you’re panting, trying to race through your reps, and this can be the time when your technique leads to a lot of stress on your lower back.
To fix this issue, having your technique evaluated can help you spot the weaknesses in your form and identify the reason your lower back keeps hurting.
Another vital way to fix this is to see a physical therapist, who can help you identify where you need to focus in the gym and which exercises will be best for you to strengthen weak areas that are leading to your lower back pain.
Sitting Too Much
A lot of our patients work long hours at the office in front of computers, which means that they are sitting for a large percentage of the day.
Sitting for long periods can lead to tightness in certain muscles, like the hip flexors, and weaknesses in other muscles like the glutes. These muscles can all have an impact on the lower back, and if there are imbalances, lower back pain can be more frequent or more severe when exercising.
While you might not be able to change your office setup or work fewer hours, there is a simple way to minimize the impact on your lower back. Frequently moving, standing, and walking, even for a minute every hour, can really help avoid lower back pain if you have an office job.
So if you often spend several hours without getting out of your chair, then simply making a conscious effort to move more is a quick thing you can do starting now, which will reduce the pain in your lower back.
Poor Posture
Another issue with sitting too much is that poor posture is a common companion, and can contribute to lower back pain.
Poor posture, where the lower back is rounded while sitting, can cause stress on the spine and surrounding muscles, so it’s important to develop good postural habits both at work which will reduce the risk of lower back pain when weight lifting.
Most of our patients who struggle with poor posture which is linked to their lower back pain, often need to adjust how they sit.
If sounds like you, bring your shoulders back, lift your chest up, move your head back over your body and tuck your chin, and finally create a small arch in your lower back that allows your spine to align itself more naturally.
If any (or all) of these common causes of lower back pain seem familiar to your circumstances, then follow the advice provided and you should notice a big improvement in your workouts, and much less back pain after weight lifting.
6 Proven Tips To Relieve Back Pain
For more expert advice on stopping back pain, don’t miss out on our free special report – The Back Pain Fix
In this report, you can discover 6 proven tips to relieve lower back pain fast and get back to training in the box, sitting comfortably at work, and being able to get a great night’s sleep.
Download Your Free Back Pain Report
Get Back To CrossFit And Lifting Weights Without Lower Back Pain
We specialize in getting urban athletes like you – bootcampers, spinners, runners, yoga lovers, and CrossFitters – back to working out hard so you look great, feel confident, and feel strong for your life.
Lower back pain is a very common problem our expert team treats, and delivering fast, natural pain relief and solving the root cause of your back pain is our speciality.
To give you the opportunity to find out more, discover why your back pain keeps coming back, and how to stop it, we are offering Free Back Pain Assessments.
These are “no-sweat”, 30-minute visits with an expert physical therapist who can listen to your story, answer your questions, and give you personalized advice on the best treatment options available.
It’s completely free, and due to extremely high demand at our New York clinic, we only have a limited number of Free Back Pain Assessments
To arrange yours, click the link below or call us on 646-430-5717.