Back Problems

I decided to write about my lower-back problems and how they got better because I had a few replies to a tweet about them. It seemed some people may be in the same spot I am. Here is a bit of background, no pun intended.

The first time I hurt my back was when I was 16 doing deadlifts in the gym. It was way too much weight for a 170 lbs. 16-year-old to do, and the result was predictable. But I was strong and young, so it was basically a week out of the gym and then I was fine.

The next few years were basically fine as well. It would hurt once in a while working – I worked a lot of construction – but again, I was in my late-teens and early 20s, so recovery wasn’t a problem. A sore back on Friday night was fine on Monday. And I kept myself in good enough shape to keep playing sports and such anyway.

Then I really hurt my back when I was 22 years old, and the problems started in earnest. Long story short, within a couple years, I would find myself with a sore back all the time, unable to sit in chairs that didn’t recline. Bar stools? Non-park benches? No. Working out became an absolute chore so I eventually stopped. The results were predictable: by my late 20s, I was over 260 lbs and my back was at its weakest.

Eventually, at 29 years old, I started taking care of it with my doctor. We are still conducting tests (COVID has greatly slowed down the ability for timely MRIs and the like) but the likely factor is a genetic condition that is degenerating the disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae. It is very easy to slip, and I mean it when I say I have thrown out my back picking up a book, sleeping the wrong way, and sneezing too hard. I would throw it out 3-4 times a year, and each time would be roughly the same timeline: in bed unable to walk for one day, able to walk *extremely gingerly* for 2-3 days, then able to walk somewhat normally sometime in Day 5, and stretching can begin. Then another week off from the gym to continue treatment, and perhaps light weights by week three. By week four, it would be back to normal, but then it’d be three months until the cycle began again.

I decided then I had a decision: this was going to get worse as I was going to get older or I was going to do something about it before I got too old to recover.

I took a year to lose the weight and got down to about 180 lbs. For anyone out there with a bad lower back, losing weight is the first thing I would recommend. Whatever is appropriate for your body. You don’t need to drop to 140 lbs., but being 5’9” and over 260 as I was, well, you’re putting a lot of unnecessary stress on your lower back. Nutrition is incredibly important but that is nothing earth-shattering. All I will say is that what you put into your body is vital to your overall health, and dropping weight specifically helps with your lower back pain. Whatever you feel is necessary, if at all.

Beyond that, I will say that yoga is what has helped the most. I have just explained how much pain there has been over the last 15 or so years, and absolutely nothing has helped like regular yoga. But I need to explain the process of getting better.

If you’re someone with lower-back problems similar to mine, you cannot just jump into a 40-minute yoga routine of almost any level. Most popular YouTube videos are good in general, but if you’re starting from scratch, they can be very bad for you. There are postures that require a certain amount of flexibility and lower-back strength, and not building up to those is a quick way to injure yourself again, and often. Believe me, I went through it, pulling my back out once doing a simple forward fold.

Here is what did help: a program called DDP Yoga. That link goes to his shop. It has an app, and DVDs, and everything. First, a bit of background.

DDP is Diamond Dallas Page, a former pro wrestler (and a very successful one). He found his post-career niche helping old former wrestlers rehab, and rehabbing from a very bad spot. We are talking guys in their 50s and 60s with replaced hips/knees and 100 lbs. overweight. He takes them from quite literally needing a chair to hold themselves in a kneeling position to doing full yoga routines. When I say these are workouts designed for people that are starting from the very beginning, I mean it. And that is what makes them ideal for people just starting to really take care of their back: these are designed for people like that. There is more advanced stuff, obviously, and you build up to that, but to start out, it’s truly the very basics of strength and flexibility. That is a crucial first step not only to protecting and strengthening your back, but to sticking with a program that doesn’t ask too much too fast. It has several modifiers in every workout for people that need to take it slow.

Listen, I get it. It feels like I’m hucking DVDs. But I have been dealing with this for nearly two decades, and I would not be where I am now without DDP Yoga. I can run miles, I can do (light) deadlifts, and I can touch my toes. Those are all things I thought I had no hope of ever doing again. I am doing them all again.

I don’t do DDP Yoga anymore because the basic stuff is too basic for me now and the more advanced stuff is more a workout than a yoga routine. I like to work out with weights, and I do different individual yoga routines on my own. That is because I’m at the point where I don’t need DDP Yoga. But I would never have gotten to this point without it, and that is why I’m recommending it so highly. Start there, give it at least six months of regular use, then see how you feel.

So, we’ve covered weight loss and workouts. What else? Oh yeah, needing to take six months.

The final boss is the mental game. I have been there and experienced every possible emotion. I have felt the despair days not being able to walk as a person in my 20s, having been playing competitive sports just 5-10 years earlier. I know what it’s like to feel as if you’ll never play tennis, go hiking, or round up a game of pick-up hockey again. The feeling that it’ll never get better; the feeling that there is no hope. Thinking that you may as well start selling your sports equipment. I understand that because I’ve felt all those feelings and thought those thoughts. It completely sucks and there’s no way around it.

But there is hope, and I say that because I’ve come out the other side with somewhat normal function. I have given up on feeling like I’m 17 again, but if I can delay feeling like I’m 95 all the time, I feel like it’s worth the effort.

And that is the final point I want to make. This will take a lot of effort. A lot of commitment, and a lot of effort. For me, I had to make the health of my back a priority. I am lucky where I do not require a job that needs my back strength (anymore) and have access to the equipment I need. I also don’t have young children to chase around, which gives me more time to look after it. Those are things that make me fortunate in this situation.

All I will say is regardless of your situation, your back needs to be a priority. You need to watch your weight – you don’t need to be a string bean; I’m 195 lbs. at 5’9” and am getting by just fine – and you need to do stretching constantly. I mean you should do 4-5 yoga routines a week, and during the day you should take a few minutes a few different times just to do a quick stretch. These are habits that will take time, but once they’re drilled in, you’ll wonder how you lived without them.

Commitment. Effort in your workouts and commitment to stick with it. And it will take months. And months. And likely more months. It took me over a year of consistent DDP yoga and then regular Yoga to get to a good spot, and I have a ways more to go. This really is about changing how you approach your health, and your back specifically.

Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.

If you feel like you’re at a spot where you can bypass DDP Yoga, I recommend trying Yoga With Adriene on YouTube. She has a couple 30-day programs you can try that are very good. I will say that you better have a good amount of strength and flexibility or there is a chance for injury. If you are just starting out, please stick with DDP Yoga.