10 Myths About Lower Back Pain (LBP)

[VonMeister]

VM why do you think the psych side of the Sarno books are "arguably garbage?"

I think Sarno overcomplicates and casts too many broad strokes.....and his work is a little outdated. I get why....there's a lot of books out there saying the same thing. I don't think it's a bad book but I think it better explains things like Fibromyalgia and Long Covid than back pain.

More importantly, there is evidence that pain education can result in improvement in chronic pain and if Sarno's book piques a persons curiosity in going down that rabbit hole then his book is fine. I've given it to friends who have been sedentary due to LBP and not ready to make any lifestyle changes.

It truly is as simple as...you're not broken....activity to tolerance, increase as able.

Pain is not injury. I have as much or more pain than the next guy but unless I'm sick with a fever...I train.

 

[VonMeister]

My older sister heard something "pop" while golfing and is experiencing back pain. I told her, "I've got a book you should read."

I heard a pop while golfing yesterday. It was the ball hitting the pin on an uphill par 3 than I couldn't see. I thought for sure I had my second HI1 but I was 5 feet and ball mark on the edge of the hole.

 

[laidback]

I heard a pop while golfing yesterday. It was the ball hitting the pin on an uphill par 3 than I couldn't see. I thought for sure I had my second HI1 but I was 5 feet and ball mark on the edge of the hole.

3 putt?

 

[Random Guy]

I took some time off from the gym and returned back this week
deadlifts, squats, you know the drill
did some Nordic curls and other stuff too

yesterday my lower back was tweaked out, and I skipped surf and the gym, and walked a lot but nothing else
today it’s even worse
every time I get up from sitting down, I’ve got that spasm thing going on
if i just twist my body a bit, I’m making those old man noises
jeezus fvcking christ, I’m a mess

i just checked the local librarys web site, and they don’t have the book availqble

looks like I’m off to Barnes and noble so I can read the fvcking book again

 

[Autoprax]

Pause is going up?

Post strength training DOMS very negatively affects my surf performance. Otherwise I only notice back pain when trying to ride my shortboard. Shoulder/neck pain is a constant no matter what I ride and it accumulates if I surf multiple days in a row which I've been a lot the past couple months. Going to have to research shoulder strength....

Nathan must be one of those gifted athletes that repsonds well to training. And he's in his twenties...

Age is defiantly a factor.

It's BS to think 60 is the new 40.

 

[Autoprax]

I took some time off from the gym and returned back this week
deadlifts, squats, you know the drill
did some Nordic curls and other stuff too

yesterday my lower back was tweaked out, and I skipped surf and the gym, and walked a lot but nothing else
today it’s even worse
every time I get up from sitting down, I’ve got that spasm thing going on
if i just twist my body a bit, I’m making those old man noises
jeezus fvcking christ, I’m a mess

i just checked the local librarys web site, and they don’t have the book availqble

looks like I’m off to Barnes and noble so I can read the fvcking book again

When you return to training you have to go back so so easy.

Give your self a couple of weeks to get use to it.

Your nervous system got spooked.

Try this

 

[Autoprax]

I think Sarno overcomplicates and casts too many broad strokes.....and his work is a little outdated. I get why....there's a lot of books out there saying the same thing. I don't think it's a bad book but I think it better explains things like Fibromyalgia and Long Covid than back pain.

More importantly, there is evidence that pain education can result in improvement in chronic pain and if Sarno's book piques a persons curiosity in going down that rabbit hole then his book is fine. I've given it to friends who have been sedentary due to LBP and not ready to make any lifestyle changes.

It truly is as simple as...you're not broken....activity to tolerance, increase as able.

Pain is not injury. I have as much or more pain than the next guy but unless I'm sick with a fever...I train.

Pain is just a fallible signaling system.

It's that simple.

To think that it's always wrong is wrong.

 

[Random Guy]

I have a party to go to tonight I only know the hosts

everyone is going to think I’ve got Tourette’swith me suddenly making these horrendous “aughhh” sounds every couple of minutes
I really didn’t want to got to this party anyway, but I don’t want to use this as an excuse

 

[Mr J]

I took some time off from the gym and returned back this week
deadlifts, squats, you know the drill
did some Nordic curls and other stuff too

yesterday my lower back was tweaked out, and I skipped surf and the gym, and walked a lot but nothing else
today it’s even worse
every time I get up from sitting down, I’ve got that spasm thing going on
if i just twist my body a bit, I’m making those old man noises
jeezus fvcking christ, I’m a mess

i just checked the local librarys web site, and they don’t have the book availqble

looks like I’m off to Barnes and noble so I can read the fvcking book again

your description of pain is the sort of thing that used to happen to me. I used to feel something go when I was skateboarding or something and the pain would continue to build the rest of the day. The next day I would barely be able to walk and had to make robot like motions to completely limit any back movement at all. I used to live on the upper floor of an apartment and I remember getting up the next day after such an incident, looking at the stairs and realising that I was not going to make it down the stairs.

Then over the course of a week everything would calm down and I would be back on my board again ... until the next incident.

I can't help thinking that a possible scenario is that this natural recovery would happen while reading the book and then the sufferer would think the book has helped then because nothing structural has been fixed up its going to happen again. This is pure speculation of course and I haven't read the book, but get the impression from this thread it is just a psychological approach to dealing with pain rather than fixing the underlying problem, or am I totally off the mark?

 

[One-Off]

OK. I've come to the understanding that low back pain is (most?) often a nervous system response to new but probably/potentially benign signals.

This past swell conditions finally permitted me to be able to ride shortboards again and after four days in a row my back was getting progressively worse. My back is always sore the evening after surfing, but more so after surfing shortboards. And in the four consecutive days it got progressively worse and by the last day was impeding my surfing. It was like my nervous system was putting the brakes on the movement (pop up) and no amount of conscious reminders (my back is not injured, there's nothing wrong, you won't get hurt) were helping.

I was thinking of doing what Sharky said - daily sets of pop ups to accustom my back to the movement, but I was wondering if that will also accelerate disc degeneration?

Also how much of pain in other parts of the body have such a signficant nervous system component (false signals for benign pathologies)?

 

[Autoprax]

OK. I've come to the understanding that low back pain is (most?) often a nervous system response to new but probably/potentially benign signals.

This past swell conditions finally permitted me to be able to ride shortboards again and after four days in a row my back was getting progressively worse. My back is always sore the evening after surfing, but more so after surfing shortboards. And in the four consecutive days it got progressively worse and by the last day was impeding my surfing. It was like my nervous system was putting the brakes on the movement (pop up) and no amount of conscious reminders (my back is not injured, there's nothing wrong, you won't get hurt) were helping.

I was thinking of doing what Sharky said - daily sets of pop ups to accustom my back to the movement, but I was wondering if that will also accelerate disc degeneration?

Also how much of pain in other parts of the body have such a signficant nervous system component (false signals for benign pathologies)?

When you pop up, brace your abdominal wall.

The way I do this is to go slightly into lumbar extension than flex slightly into neutral.

That slight lumbar flexion into neutral is your brace.

There are other cues but I made this one up and it works great for me.

I do this when I dead lift.

It makes my lumbar spine feel bullet proof.

I grooved this patter by doing hip hinges touching my butt to the wall. I stand like a foot away.

I got into lumber extension, then flex into neutral and hold that tension as I hip hinge into the wall.

I try to do 50 of these before I jump into the shower as the water warms up.

If you can stablize here, your legs will move more freely because your nervous system feels safe.

 

[Havoc]

this whole thread is spoon feeding one-off all the info in rippetoes blue book over multiple years. just buy and read the book.

 

[Random Guy]

this whole thread is spoon feeding one-off all the info in rippetoes blue book over multiple years. just buy and read the book.

Wait, there’s another book?

 

[slipped_disc]

OK. I've come to the understanding that low back pain is (most?) often a nervous system response to new but probably/potentially benign signals.

This past swell conditions finally permitted me to be able to ride shortboards again and after four days in a row my back was getting progressively worse. My back is always sore the evening after surfing, but more so after surfing shortboards. And in the four consecutive days it got progressively worse and by the last day was impeding my surfing. It was like my nervous system was putting the brakes on the movement (pop up) and no amount of conscious reminders (my back is not injured, there's nothing wrong, you won't get hurt) were helping.

I was thinking of doing what Sharky said - daily sets of pop ups to accustom my back to the movement, but I was wondering if that will also accelerate disc degeneration?

Also how much of pain in other parts of the body have such a signficant nervous system component (false signals for benign pathologies)?

Practice with good form and a proper warm up should be okay on your back IMO.

hands down the best tutorial I’ve seen is WaveKi’s. It shows you how to practice in slow motion on land, which was a game changer for my back. (I had to use props at first cause I lacked the flexibility). prior to that I was doing more of a burpee-style pop up, which is more jarring for me.

 

[One-Off]

this whole thread is spoon feeding one-off all the info in rippetoes blue book over multiple years. just buy and read the book.

Deadlifts? Been there, done (doing) that. LB squats and OHPs too. RDLs and bent over rows too. No book. I got his decidedly low res dvd.

 

[One-Off]

When you pop up, brace your abdominal wall.

The way I do this is to go slightly into lumbar extension than flex slightly into neutral.

That slight lumbar flexion into neutral is your brace.

There are other cues but I made this one up and it works great for me.

I do this when I dead lift.

It makes my lumbar spine feel bullet proof.

I grooved this patter by doing hip hinges touching my butt to the wall. I stand like a foot away.

I got into lumber extension, then flex into neutral and hold that tension as I hip hinge into the wall.

I try to do 50 of these before I jump into the shower as the water warms up.

If you can stablize here, your legs will move more freely because your nervous system feels safe.

I know this has been suggested to me several times. Kind of like the valsalva before a lift. When I surf though it's like I'm on auto pilot. I was actually thinking about that the other morning when I was feeling the back. "Try to tense the core while popping up." But once I'm paddling for a wave the thought is gone. So maybe I need to practice the pop up on dry land, consciously bracing the core before I pop up.

I'm going to go try 5 right now...

 

[Autoprax]

I know this has been suggested to me several times. Kind of like the valsalva before a lift. When I surf though it's like I'm on auto pilot. I was actually thinking about that the other morning when I was feeling the back. "Try to tense the core while popping up." But once I'm paddling for a wave the thought is gone. So maybe I need to practice the pop up on dry land, consciously bracing the core before I pop up.

I'm going to go try 5 right now...

hollow body exersize helps this too.

 

[One-Off]

hollow body exersize helps this too.

Every night, at least 3x one minute holds. Glute bridges too.

I did 4 sets of five pop ups. Pop ups were good. A while later the back felt twingy in a specific spot, same spot I ”injured.” I’m going to keep doing them though, will reduce to 3 sets of 5 and see how that goes.

 

[Autoprax]

Every night, at least 3x one minute holds. Glute bridges too.

I did 4 sets of five pop ups. Pop ups were good. A while later the back felt twingy in a specific spot, same spot I ”injured.” I’m going to keep doing them though, will reduce to 3 sets of 5 and see how that goes.

Another trick is to loop band over a pull up bar and put it across your chest.

That makes it easier to pop up.

That is a good regression.

You need to regress until can do with out it hurting.

I can dead lift and be fine and then the next day my back will seize up.

That makes it hard to know how hard to push ones self.

Also, wear a belt and use it as a cuing device.

When I go on my efoil, I wear a weight lifting belt.

Just to cue me to brace

 

[Bullnutts]

I enjoyed deadlifts forever. Using the hex bar to do them was awesome. Notice the past tense. The question I was asked by some lifters and PT people and my massage guy was why do you do them? While it is a functional exercise, how often do you need to lift two, three, four hundred pounds off the floor. Furthermore, as someone getting older, what is the risk to benefit ratio and how does it improve what you want to do - which i my case is basically surfing. For me, I've been able to find other exercises that work my hip hinge and legs/back while also being more geared to surfing. Just a suggestion, that's all. Think about why we do certain lifts and does it help to improve the activities you want to do. Aloha!