Where Do Broken Backs Go? A Herniated Disc Recovery Log

Shoemaker

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They go to the gym is where they fucking go.

I herniated two discs back in October. I exacerbated one of them in November to the point that I was bed ridden for a couple of weeks. I was able to get back into physical therapy in December and it's been a slow uphill climb since then. I'm currently suffering from some weakness and numbness in my right leg, but the strength is slowly starting to return. At this time I can't walk on my right heel without the foot falling to the floor. This will take awhile to come back, as the nerve was under pressure for such an extended period of time. There's a chance I may never get the strength back 100% but that's a bridge to cross when I get there.

I was recently discharged from physical therapy to continue my rehab at home since I had developed enough self efficacy. When I first went in we started with banded knee push outs and ball squeezes (plus ultrasound & stim/heat therapy). Eventually we worked up to glute bridges and back extensions. Then it was rack pulls and kettlebell squats. The final evolution that I'm on now is effectively the starting strength linear progression. I'm low-bar squatting, deadlifting from the ground & pressing. I haven't been doing much bench pressing but thats more because I don't particularly like it and prefer the OHP right now. I want to focus on movements that force me stabilize my lower back, even if it means lifting less weight. Protecting the low back is the goal, the weight is just a means to do it.



March 14th, 2021
Squat - 110lb
Press - 120lb
Deadlift - 150lb

Mobility: Good day. After some proper warmup had no issue getting into & out of the hole. No problems getting into proper deadlifting pose & holding low back throughout ROM.
Leg Strength: Can stand on both heels at once. Ball of my right foot can almost come off the ground but still can't fully separate. Feels stronger than it did a week ago.
Leg Pain: A little bit when setting up to squat. No pain during ROM.
 
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March 16th, 2021
Squat - 130lb
Press - 121.5lb
Deadlift - 160lb

Also start dorsal-flexing a 15lb kettlebell with my right foot. Hoping I might be able to retrain the nervous system to speed up recovery.

Mobility: Right hamstring cramped up during warm up; so-so.
Leg Strength: Could stand on both heels, but putting weight primarily on the right leg I couldn't hold the ball completely off the ground.
Leg Pain: None.
 
March 18th, 2021
Squat - 140lb
Press - 123.5lb x 4, 120lb x 5, 110lb x 7
Deadlift - 170lb

Mobility: It was okay considering I didn't have much time and had to jam through warmup sets.
Leg Strength: No real change. I'm going to only note when it improves or declines, as it's been pretty flat for a while.
Leg Pain: Some when squatting down to set up the bar for deadlifts. None when actually squatting though lol.


Deadlifts feel really good again. I imagine that number will keep jumping by 10lb or so every session. I was at 295 before my injury, so I expect to get back close to that in the next couple of months.

I'm realizing now a big issue I had previous was glute activation - it wasn't happening. I'm squatting less than I was previous but my ass feels considerably stronger. And my wife says it's rounder. So that's cool. But I'm kind of at the edge of their strength now, so the squat is now in 5-pound-increment territory.

Press sucked. 123.5 did not want to go up. 120 felt good but I was smoked from the previous set. The more sets of squats I do, the better I feel. But each set of OHP saps energy from the next set and I progressively hate them.
 
March 21st, 2021
Squat - 145lb x 5 x 3
Press - 110lb x 7 x 3
Deadlift - 180lb x 5 x 1

Lots of aches & pains, couldn't get to depth on squat until my last set. Tweaked the left side of my back a bit (not the spine, just irritated a muscle back there). Just kind of a shit day but I got the work done.
 
just made a thread about it my disk recovery this week. I'm all but discharged from pt myself, only one more session and am looking forward to lifting in Ernest again. Going forward I think my takeaway has been that the back (MY back) needs to be trained in traction at least as much as compression.

Did you do any nerve gliding/flossing during pt?

Have you tried reverse hypers? I honestly think they're saving my back.

Are you lifting through any pain?

What were your numbers like before the injury?
 
March 25th, 2021
Squat - 150lb x 5 x 3
Press - 120lb x 5 x 1, 120lb x 4 x 1 (failed last rep), 100 x 10 x 1
Deadlift - 190lb x 5 x 1

Will probably keep doing volume on the OHP and introduce bench back in to help drive it up. Plus it's getting a little stale in there.
 
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just made a thread about it my disk recovery this week. I'm all but discharged from pt myself, only one more session and am looking forward to lifting in Ernest again. Going forward I think my takeaway has been that the back (MY back) needs to be trained in traction at least as much as compression.

Did you do any nerve gliding/flossing during pt?

Good luck! Getting out of PT is a nice milestone.

Regarding the flossing, yeah we did that. Laying on my back, hands clasped around my thigh, and raising/lowering the foot (pointing toes up when raising, pointing toes down when lowering). It helps a bit but I've found that the McKenzie pressups really help relieve any problems I'm having. It's been the most effective thing for me as far as actually working the nerve itself.

Have you tried reverse hypers? I honestly think they're saving my back.

I haven't. But I've been watching that guy on youtube who does the "I squat every day" series and he says they help him a ton with keeping his hamstrings long. That's a big issue right now, my hamstrings are really tight and it makes reaching depth pretty hard. Today I was at least an inch above parallel*. I've been doing some very light & controlled Good Mornings to help. I'm doing it all at home so I don't have much equipment to work with outside of my bars, plates & rack.

I'm not that worried about hitting proper depth every time right now, though.

Are you lifting through any pain?

Not any nerve pain, no. If I feel the effects of the disc, I won't lift anything until it's gone away. Usually 10 reps of press-ups will do away with any transient leg pain I have. But I feel the nerve pain at all I will stop. I didn't do this for my first round of PT in November and it's what resulted in my being bed ridden. I irritated the nerve like you wouldn't believe and caused myself the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I learned that lesson.

But regular aches and pains, yeah I just push through those. If I didn't lift when anything hurt then I'd just never lift lol.

What were your numbers like before the injury?

Squat was 220lb (that's what I had on my back when I herniated the disc), deadlift was at 295lb, bench was 190lb and OHP was 125lb. Absolutely nothing to write home about, I had only been lifting since the end of July when I wrecked myself in mid-October. 35 y/o fwiw.
 
March 27th, 2021
Squat - 155lb x 5 x 3
Bench - 150lb x 5 x 3 - felt like I could put another 20 on the bar but since I haven't benched in months I tried to swerve the doms
Deadlift - 200lb x 5 x 1

March 29th, 2021
Squat - 160lb x 5 x 3
Press - 130lb x 3 x 5 - tried mixing it up, more weight, fewer reps per set, same volume
Deadlift - 210lb x 5 x 1

Feels good to be back deadlifting more than my body weight. Started doing hypers after @Urban said he was doing reverse hypers. Smoking my hamstrings but I'm starting to get the length back. I can still feel a bit of wink when I hit parallel - gonna keep doing hypers on off days and then see what happens. Also need to try releasing my psoas before squatting. In the past that helped with mobility.
 
April 3rd, 2021
Squat - 165lb x 5 x 3
Bench - 170lb x 5 x 3
Deadlift - 220lb x 5 x 1
 
April 5th, 2021
Squat - 170lb x 5 x 3

No lifts on anything else this day. I had some numbness in my left hand after squats, I think I pinched a nerve in my wrist. I tried pressing, my right arm shot up but my left arm stuck. Went away after a day or so.

Got the coof-vaccine on the 6th and took Thursday off because I felt like a pile of crap.

April 10th, 2021
Squat - 150lb x 5 x 5 - did 5 sets at a lower weightI felt like I need more practice in the squat with some weight on there. When I did the 170 sets I was starting to get back into the squat-morning pattern. I've been watching Calgary Barbells videos lately, so this time I tried hinging at the top and then lowering myself down while
Press - 120lb x 5 x 3 regression, I blame the coof.
Deadlift - 230lb x 5 x 1 - Still up and to the right here.

Yesterday I felt like I had good mobility after doing the 5x5's. I might try that again tonight and reassess tomorrow.
 
Today was ass. Once I got the bar loaded with 150, it was nothing but squat-mornings. Bar, 90, 130, 140, no problem. 150, squat-morning. Tried backing the weight down, and I guess I fatigued myself because by then even 130 wasn't coming straight up. I think I cued "hip drive" too much, because my glutes are driving everything it feels like until my femur is around 10-15 degrees above parallel, then my quads are picking it up. I'm keeping the bar centered over my foot until the bottom, but when rising up it falls forward.

One big difference is that I'm definitely getting below parallel now. I might have to drop the set weights down, considering before I was just at parallel. I'm probably being unrealistic thinking parallel and below-parallel would be able to support the same weight.

Tomorrows another day.
 
April 15th, 2021
Squat - 125lb x 5 x 3
Bench - 175lb x 5 x 3
Deadlift - 240lb x 5 x 1

Switched to high bar squat. Spent Tuesday and Wednesday practicing with the bar. Takes me a bit longer to get my ankles warmed up and mobile, but it feels a lot better than lowbar for me. Easier to maintain the back angle into the hole, no squat-morning coming out of the hole. Going to keep it up and see where it takes me. Everything else felt good. Deadlifts coming up fast. Scorching my lower back, but good.

re: the squat, one thing that's weird is that in order to keep my heel from rising off the floor at the bottom of the squat, I have to angle my feet out about 45 degrees and they're only about shoulder width apart. Any more internal rotation (or width) and my right heel starts coming loose. But at that angle & width, I feel a lot stronger too. I have to push my knees out kind of far, which allows me to sink lower but also helps me rise when I hit the bottom. Feels like there's a lot more muscle mass being activated.
 
April 17th, 2021
Squat - 130lb x 5 x 3 - low bar, high bar put too much pressure on my right knee.
Deadlift - 250lb x 5 x 1

Deads felt great. I was worried I got a but round on the last rep, but I watched it back and everything stayed straight. So good stress on my lower back.
 
Not my area of expertise but keep it up Shoe, i wouldn't be able to do what you're doing that's for sure.
 
Thought I'd update. I started keeping a log elsewhere just because it was more convenient. But for the sake posterity:


I've got my squat up to 200lbs for reps now. It took a lot of work to get my hip mobility back and my quads had been a limiting factor causing me to stay too bent over. Everything kind of came together in December. Since then I've been able to hit depth easily and feel really strong in the bottom position for the first time since the injury.

Deadlift was 295lb today and I felt like I had a lot more in the tank. I've been eatting a lot more lately, and I've changed up my start to the lift a bit and it feels a lot better.

Bench is 225lb now. It's weird to have a bench higher than my squat but that's how it goes for now. Doing 225 for reps feels really good though. Pushing for 275lb so I can win at Sherdog.
 
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