Old Forum Training after recent injury?

[Rusty]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is my first time posting here and I am looking for some advice. At the beginning of November I pulled a muscle in my lower back on the right side. I went to the doctor who took some x-rays, said nothing was wrong, and then sent me to see my physical therapist. My PT believed it was a Quadratus Lumborum sprain.  The PT told me I need to improve my abdominal strength and stretch my lower posterior chain, specifically my hamstrings and piriformis. I have been following the PT’s instructions and my back is doing much better. I have no pain, full ROM and the flexibility is getting better.

So that was a little background information. I may be starting a career fire academy next month. My question is what sort of training should I be doing to prepare without re-injuring my back? I would like to train with my bells but with the QL injury still being fairly recent I am hesitant to try. Would it be best to just focus solely on the abdominal strength and flexibility? Any advice would be much appreciated. My primary goal is to be health for academy, but I want to be as physically prepared as possible too.

Thanks for the help!

Rusty

 

[Pavel]

Rusty, if you are medically cleared to train, I would do kettlebell deadlifts and later swings; goblet squats; pullups, strict and eventually weighted; some sort of bilateral press that does not challenge your QL, like the incline pushup; eventually windmills, with a very light weight; plus whatever your PT has you do.

 

[wisigoth]

Hi, here's my 2cents, let me post here for now,may need to start  a new thread if a valid topic. Recovering patients make astonishing gains in strength in weakened limbs by training the unaffected limbs on the other side of their body, according to new research by the University of Victoria."A 30-per-cent gain on the trained side usually results in a 15-per-cent gain on the untrained side," the researcher said.This research was also based on a a mostly forgotten 1894 discovery by Yale University researchers who found that when people train one arm, the other arm also gained strength.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/training+unaffected+limbs+stroke+victims+gain+strength+both/7674948/story.html#ixzz2EiJhV9eE

 

[Rusty]

Pavel: I have been given the go ahead for training on pull-ups, push-ups, additional abdominals (the PT has had me doing planks) bodyweight squatting and running. All of those are conditional on me not experiencing pain; which so far I haven’t felt pain in my QL, just some morning stiffness in the lower right region of my back after training. I’d prefer to try some body weight training before attempting weights to try to insure I don’t do too much too soon, which my PT agreed with. I was planning on doing your Fighter Pull-Up program and maybe the Military Fitness pushup program to start and see how it goes. You mentioned inclined pushups, would you advise doing them following something like that pushup program? I feel fairly under the gun since academy is only a month away so I’d definitely like to try to get the most bang for my buck, while still being fairly cautious.

Ed: That is some very interesting research. I’ll check into that some more.

Thanks for the helping me out!

 

[Rusty]

Pavel: Also, what exactly do you mean by "challenge your QL"? What exercises challenge it? Would standard or decline pushups challenge it? Should they be avoided?

 

[jgruginski]

Rusty:  Like your PT said, let pain be your guide. Since you're already cleared to do planks and bodyweight squats, I've had and seen fantastic results doing Foundation Training and I think it's a great precursor/complement to the more dynamic work of KB swings and deadlifts. Here's a video on the basic movements http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI

You'll quickly recognize the familiar hip hinge position, but I really like the whole progression that is covered in the book.

It doesn't cover hip mobility but those goblet squats can take care of that. I will say that goblet squats seem to help everything as long as you focus on the quality of the movement, i.e. keeping the spine from rounding, and not just doing a squat.