Back Out

Things had been going pretty well and then BAM!!!!

No Warning

Out of nowhere, my lower back went out. I’ve fought this for years and have a pretty good routine for keeping it at bay. I realized that the warning signs were there but I didn’t pay enough attention.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I was getting more and more dehydrated because of my current diet and foolish things I was doing, I did a simple workout and boom. My back siezed up.

Playing It Safe

As far as my workout, it wasn’t anything crazy. In fact, I thought I was playing it safe as I knew that my body was reacting differently while on this diet.

I did a slow 2 mile job on the treadmill, a couple of sets of bench press, 2 sets of pull-ups, 2 sets of bent over rows and 2 sets of seated overhead press. I used low weights (per my normal routine) on all of these so figured I was safe. I purposely didn’t do squats and deadlifts as I didn’t want to court any back issues with the modified diet.

No standout event. No injury. Just when I was stretching afterwards, I felt the the start of the familiar lower back spasms. Noooo!!!

Paying The Piper

Whenever this happens, it takes me a week or two to get back to normal so it’s always very frustrating. In hindsight, my chest and back were pretty sore so the exercises really did test my muscles. I hadn’t lifted in a couple weeks and I think the diet left me affected more than normal. I know that on this diet that my heart rate is up when I’m doing endurance activity so it’s not surprising. I’m also thinking it was the bent over rows that did the job. I’ve since detected a couple of trigger points in my lower back that make me think that was the culprit.

So the lesson for me here is that when you are on any type of altered diet program, you have to be doubly, triply, quadrupley careful with your activity to ensure something you normally do doesn’t trigger anything.

Image credit: Posture & pain by Dreaming in the deep south

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