Lower back pain and my visit to the chiro

[Szust]

Hey all,

Sorry if I'm long-winded, I'll break it down in sections.

Background:

About 7 months ago I hurt my back squatting (I hadn't been going past parallel in my attempts, decided to go full depth without lightening the weight... stupid ego). The next morning I had to crawl to get to the bathroom, so I went to the hospital and they diagnosed it as a muscle strain, gave me valium and told me to lie down for 2 days and slowly force myself to walk around and avoid atrophy.

I did all of this and everything seemed to heal up properly. I even started lifting again up until I became tied up with the job hunt and graduation and did nothing from May until about two weeks ago. Now, when I started up once again two weeks ago, my lower back started aching and locking up after squatting, so I decided to pay the local chiropractor a visit.

Visit to the chiro and concerns about lifting:

The chiro claimed that my abdominal muscles are too weak to maintain my body posture correctly, and that is causing my erector muscles to feel slight chronic pain and discomfort when I squat. He says I should focus on exercising my abdominal muscles and stretch against the erectors as much as possible.

I'm inclined to believe him as my lazy self decided to forgo abdominal exercises when I was doing Madcow 5x5, and the extra depth in my squats probably agitated those erectors with that muscle imbalance and lack of flexibility.

Anyway, my inclination is to continue doing 5x5, lowering the weight on my squats, deadlifts and overhead press substantially, and focusing on abdominal strength. Maybe even do Leg Press until I sort this all out and this pain goes away? What do you more knowledgeable guys think?

[Lones Green]

I would say that more ab work wouldn't hurt at all. I do it every day, and when I started doing that I noticed a huge difference in my squat and deadlift

[Szust]

I would say that more ab work wouldn't hurt at all. I do it every day, and when I started doing that I noticed a huge difference in my squat and deadlift

Thanks, the fact that I've been neglecting it has made things really bad for me now. I did some ab work last week and it has helped some, but after some more research and some tests I'm looking at anterior pelvic tilt and hyper-lordosis. Stretching is going to become a huge part of every visit to the gym, especially for the psoas, and I'm going to work on strengthening the posterior chain and my abs to try and relieve some of the stress on my erectors.

I'm updating mostly so that others can see what I've learned, and that muscle imbalances can really really suck.

[Alex.V]

Have you gone to see a physician (not a chiro)?

[Szust]

Have you gone to see a physician (not a chiro)?

No. The chiropractor I did deal with is the "straight" sort, even though he is not specialized in athletes or anything like that. Sorry if my ignorance becomes apparent, but I thought a chiro would be the best primary health care provider to assess my situation, even though I'm aware they don't necessarily require a medical degree. I thought I would try and eliminate the initial visit to my primary care physician since I thought they would simply refer me to a specialist anyway.

[916Lifter]

How deep are you squating now? Maybe do a form check you might not be as flexible as you think you are and when going deep your form might be suffering do to flexibility.... Make sure you do lots of stretching everyday, tight hams and hips are certian to give you lower back problems while squating. Lets see what you got?