What's up Sherbro. Appreciate the call out. I don't post lately because I'm overwhelmed with life stuff. I can give you my opinion based on what you said, for whatever it's worth. I'm not a professional or anything. I go by what I read, investigate, and some personal experience of being a gym rat and managing my own training. I do read extensively, but that's all.
"To my astonishment though, the acute phase was nowhere near where it was 2 years ago and it stopped bothering me after a week." That's good. I would just go back to training and don't worry about it. Pain doesn't suggest there is a serious injury, just by itself. There are studies showing that the correlation between some physical change and pain is tenuous. You can have one without the other. There's people with hernias detectable through imagery that feel no pain, and can train normally. And there's people with back pain and no particular diagnosis, who can't. There's a whole field of "pain science" dedicated to studying that stuff. Read this (written by actual doctors who train):
So you’ve been training, but have started experiencing pain. This is an extremely common experience that we get asked about on a daily basis. Essentially,
www.barbellmedicine.com
Also, listen to this if you want a discussion with different professionals (who also train):
Of course, return to training with some intelligence and don't go straight to a PR attempt after not training for a week, reduce tempo/load if needed, and so on. But I'm sure you already know these common sense recommendations. Also, if you were trying a new loaded position that you're not used to (snatch grip DL), I don't think feeling pain is uncommon, even with light weights. Sometimes the body reacts weirdly to that. Just introduce the new movements gradually.
"Now after 2 weeks I feel like my range of motion is back and I am like pretty much painless." Then it means you should just go back to training.
"The orthopedic doctor thinks that it was just a muscle cramp" If someone who checks out injuries for a living tells you this, it's a good idea to listen to them.
"it REALLY felt just like the herniated disc I had 2 years ago." I'm pretty sure that this idea of a "warning" of a specific type of injury based on some sensation is something you just made up in your mind. How do you know your memory of some sensation form 2 years ago is accurate? How do you know if your mind just made a connection because it's a similar area, and you were scared? How do you know if a muscle strain can't feel similar to your other injury? Answer: You don't know any of these things, and nobody does, because no one knows how you felt. So, if it's not hurting or impeding movement now, I wouldn't worry about it.
"So can the spine send signals like that without being already fucked?" Yes, pain that resolves in a week is not a sign of some catastrophic injury. Well, define injury, or define "being fucked". If you ruptured some fibers in a muscle, felt some pain, and then felt fine after a week, would you call this an "injury"? Unless you're willing to get an MRI every single time something hurts slightly, this is not answerable, so maybe yes, and maybe no. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. How intensely you feel pain may be affected by many things, like your mental state, stress, your environment, your ideas about pain, and so on, not just the physical changes you experience. You may give someone a placebo painkiller and the pain becomes less intense. Does this mean the "injury" changed? I don't know. If the problem goes away and the symptoms resolve, then just go back to your training (in a smart way, gradually, with necessary modification in load/tempo/volume, etc). Everyone that does sport hurts sometimes. If you have noticeable symptoms, i.e., suddenly can't move your right leg or your left testicle becomes the size of Bigfoot Silva's head, yeah go to a doctor.
Random note: Oberst's position is considered almost universally bullshit by most qualified trainers if you look around. Ask someone to present you with some evidence that the deadlift is a particularly dangerous movement, and you will find they can't show you anything other than some handwavy broscience. You just need to take care with load management, volume, etc. But that applies to every lift, not the deadlift in particular. Just because someone is big and strong, it doesn't mean that they know what they're talking about. Otherwise Rich Piana would be the ultimate trainer. If you're trying to lift as heavy as possible and compete, there is some risk to that, sure. But if you're just trying to get strong, just take your time with it; no movement is inherently dangerous. Look up the reports on injury rates in powerlifting, and you'll find they are similar to other individual sports, and actually on the low end of that.
