Part 2 of 2 Back Pain From Lockdown - Road To Recovery

I just wanted to follow on from my last video where i spoke about how i was trying to heal my lower back from my deadlift injury.

This is Part 2 of 2 - In this video log I share what I've done so far which seems to be helping at present.

Check out the video for more information!

Video Transcript

Hi, good morning. Mitesh here.

Just to follow on from my last video where I spoke about how I was trying to heal my lower back issues I was having from my injury, from the deadlift. So like I said, I've been applying heat, I've been using the foam roller to massage the area, and I've been watching my posture while I'm sitting using a posture wobble cushion. 

So it's been getting better. This morning I woke up and I could still feel a few twinges in the back when I was bending and brushing my teeth. So I thought, what I can do this morning is I'll do a bit more exercise to get the movement going. 

First I started off with the bird dog using the ankle weights. I did a few reps on each side, put the ankle weights on my legs, and did a few sessions of them. I timed myself using a timer. I held the bird dog for 10 seconds and then basically, I lowered the bird dog, and then I did the bird dog again for another 10 seconds. 

By using a timer, you can keep track of how long you're actually holding the bird dog. You don't need to count in your head, you can just focus on your form when doing the bird dog. So I did that both sides equal sides. 

Then I got my dumbbell, I didn't use the full dumbbell but instead took the first dumbbell off, which is about 1.25 kg. It was heavy enough to give me resistance. So with that, I did the bird dog again.  
I had the ankle weights on my ankle and I held this out on my arm.I did the alternative bird dog or variation of the bird dog where I stick your leg out, and you stick your arm out but you're holding some weight in your arm for the resistance and you've got the ankle weights on your leg for resistance.

That was challenging and the exercises was safe to do. There’s just about enough resistance to apply to my lower back and the muscle areas without me risking injury. And that's the whole idea behind this. 

It is to sort of apply a little bit of resistance without applying too much resistance where your back will just go and you'll end up with an injury. A little bit of resistance to give you a bit of a challenge and just maybe iron out any issues you've got there. 

So since up to the bird dog and bird dog variation with the ankle weights and dumbbell the few sorts of niggle areas I had that I got when I bent backward and forwards I didn't have any issues, I didn't have any pain or anything.  
So obviously my back is all warmed up the muscle areas are probably all warmed up. So at that point, I thought I'll do another exercise given a bit more resistance. So I basically got my weight plate, which I don't know if you can see. 

So I’ve got my 20 kg weight plate and with that, what I did is I did the static hold. In a previous post, I've talked about the farmer's walk and the the static hold and what I did with that was basically I stood up with the plate, did the hip hinge down, and then lifted the weight up and just held the position for about 10 seconds.

I did that on one side for about five to eight reps and then did the opposite side holding it for 10 seconds. And this is my first sort of routine before I move on to say maybe some sort of lifting slightly heavier weights from here on. 

So just to give you a quick update to follow and just follow on from this morning's video when I spoke about the exercise, which I've just done on this clip that you have just seen. When I'm in the office, what I'm also doing is I'm using the kneeling chair to help me with my posture and take the weight off my back.

So as you can see I have bought my kneeling chair with me. So at the moment while I'm struggling, I'm using the kneeling chair to take the weight off my lower back, which will help the sort of healing aspect and take the strain away.

If I'm sitting down, hunched over like this is, it’s not going to help my lower back because the lower back is being compressed and the disk is getting compressed if there's an injury around the area it is not going to help.

By using the kneeling chair like this, as you can see, I'm not hunched over, I'm pretty much straight, and the weight has been taken off my back, which will help in healing. So hopefully, this will get me back to where I was. 

So just to quickly recap, basically I injured my back from doing a deadlift. Now, that could have been any injury, I could have injured it from anything but the process I would normally take is I would take maybe an ibuprofen or so to help inflammation then after a couple of days, I will start using the foam roller to sort of massage the area.

To sort of free the muscle-up to get the blood flowing into the area, I would then use heat in the area to help with the relaxing of the muscles, and then when I'm sitting I'd be mindful. So I'll be using a wobble cushion of some sort to keep my posture right and or I've got the kneeling chair.  
Depending on where I'm working, I'll be using the kneeling chair to help me with my posture to take the weight off my back. And then gradually, I will start to do a little bit of exercise a bit of resistance exercise like the bird dog to sort of get the core muscles firing again. 
If the hamstrings are tight, then I will do a bit of stretching on the hamstring side of things and the other thing I'm trying to do is get into the habit of getting up more often going for a walk and if I can get on my mountain bike, I will go for a bike ride to help with the cardio and help with just the movement around the lower bodyside because like I said, with the lockdown, it's the lack of movement and sitting at the desk just working. 

And then sitting on the couch. It's just it's not going to help our core. It is not going to help the lower back.


And then as a result of that, I'll do something and I'll end up injuring myself, like I have done. 

So my route to resolution is this and I've tried to explain the path I’m going through. So yeah, that's all for now. Thank you.

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