Deadlifts For Lower Back Pain The Only Way To Fix Your Back Pain And Still Hit PRs

If you hurt your back deadlifting and you want to deadlift PRs again this is the post for you.

8 years ago I was deadlifting when I felt a pop in my back.

I froze instantly and was too scared to move.

I knew something bad had happened but I couldn't really feel any pain.

Until I tried to bend over…

And the pain was excruciating.

I was so scared that this would stop me from training for months.

I was worried that I'd herniated a disc or done permanent damage that I was going to have to live with forever.

But after just 6 weeks I was already deadlifting again!

And 3 months later I competed at the university national championships in olympic weightlifting using deadlifts for lower back pain relief.

Here’s how I did it…

First I had to identify the trigger for the pain.

Usually there’s one or two main triggers that cause your pain when you lift.

It’s either the weight, the sets/ reps , the range of motion or the speed of the movement.

In my case it was the weight.

I could deadlift the bar, it wasn’t 100% pain free but it was manageable.

But I couldn’t deadlift the weights that I’d usually train at (around 140kg), that was way too painful…

But in the middle, around 60kg I could lift the weight without too much pain.

Beyond that the pain was unbearable.

So adjusted the trigger (the weight) down so that the deadlifts weren’t too painful.

Let’s look at another example of how this works.

Let’s say the range of motion is the trigger for your pain in the deadlift.

When you deadlift from blocks you don’t really feel any pain.

And with blocks you can add some weight and maybe you can even get close to your usual working weight without pain.

But as soon as you try to remove the blocks and go back to the floor your pain is unbearable, even with 20 or 30kg.

If that’s the case then you know that your trigger is the bottom of the range of motion of the deadlift, going from the floor.

And now you can adjust it!

To adjust the trigger you need to reduce the trigger that’s causing your pain.

So for me where the weight was the trigger, I needed to lower the weight and train below 60kg because that’s where the trigger caused me too much pain.

But that’s not going to do anything if I train that light!

Don’t worry though, that’s where adjusting the other triggers comes into play.

So 3 sets of 3 reps at 40kg would be way too light for me to get any benefit from the training.

But if I increased the number of reps to 8-10 for 3 sets at 40kg then I can train the muscles still without pissing off the pain.

And slowly over time I progressed the weight each week and eventually got back to lifting my normal weights and competing!

But what about the range of motion example?

Well if you start with a block that’s 30cm high you can use the same principles to still get a stimulus.

Increase the weight to the point where it’s challenging and increase the number of reps or so that even with less range of motion you can still work your muscles.

And when you’ve found a decent weight where it’s challenging but not painful.

Then you can start training there and each session try to reduce the height of the block by a couple of cm.

Let’s say in week 1 you do 30, then you decrease the height by 2cm each time as long as the back is feeling good each time

Soon enough you’ll be back to the floor!

That’s how you can use deadlifts for lower back pain.

Want help using deadlifts to get rid of your back pain so you can hit PRs in the next 90 days?

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