Jefferson Curl Injury

During the final rep of the final set of Jefferson curls yesterday, I felt an odd/popping sensation and then pain in my lumbar spine. I stopped immediately and also didn't perform ABR's. Today it's uncomfortable, only painful after getting up from sitting or rounding my lumbar spine.

My pike flexibility is poor so I've been trying hard to improve my rom in this exercise without much success so far- I can only assume I pushed too far, rounding my lumbar spine.

After heavy dead lifting and kettlebell swinging for years without issue, this is a very lame way to get injured- entirely my own doing

Having never injured my lumbar spine befor, is a dr's opinion the only sensible course of action?

Thanks

Sorry to hear about your injury.  If the pain is more than a mild annoyance or mild discomfort, go get it checked.  Regardless you now get to "enjoy" some mandatory rest until the injury is pain-free and then begin with only very scaled back work as you evaluate how the injury is healing.

 

Incidents of this type generally occur when someone, with the best of intentions, fails to separate the intensity of their conditioning work from the intensity of their mobility work.  As you have discovered, if someone approaches their mobility work with the same intensity as their conditioning work, it is only a question of "when", not "if", they will get injured.  

 

In the future, always look at mobility as a long term goal.   Yes you want to work, but you also want to make sure that there is at least another rep or two still in the bank; especially when you are a beginner to GST and mobility work in general.  Remember that you can always go harder tomorrow, but you can't take it back after you have gone too hard today. 

 

Unfortunately this is a lesson which requires experience to appreciate and the only way to gain that necessary experience is to suffer the consequences of our bad decisions (myself included).

 

Be well.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I started on 20kg with the Jefferson curl and I underestimated the power of this exercise to stretch the connective tissue of the back. I also had some pain afterwards for several days. I then went to a 2.5kg plate and added 1kg when I could do the exercise comfortably. Now I can do 30kg with no problem. This has taken over 6 months so do not hurry.

Woah, 30kg. I never even thought about using that much wait. What is the target weight we should be looking to hit?

IcedDante said:

Woah, 30kg. I never even thought about using that much wait. What is the target weight we should be looking to hit?

I think bodyweight is the target. So 94kg for me. I will have to check old posts, but I am sure that's what coach stated.

Body weight?! Man I have a long way to go. Do we need to have this much before advancing to the next pe?

Bodyweight for Jefferson Curls? Seriously? I tested out of this just now and I was using 10lb dumbbells. Was this talked about in another thread?

xray said:

Body weight?! Man I have a long way to go. Do we need to have this much before advancing to the next pe?

45lb (as demonstrated with an olympic bar) is the norm for mastery, anything after that is the long term goal, so it seems. (take this with a grain of salt)

20 kg is what we should be aiming for mastery. More would be a bonus, but don't go all Starting Strength on the lift, like adding 5 kg per session...

As far as your course programming is concerned, 20kg with correct ROM is the acceptable standard for progressing onward to the next iM.  

 

However this iM should remain in your warmups and continue to improve.  The long term goal is to continue on past this initial 20kg to a minimum of half bodyweight Jefferson Curls; although as Mark has noted building up to full bodyweight Jefferson Curls is my preference.

 

It is also important to note how patient and prudent Mark has been in increasing the load of his Jefferson Curls:

 

"... I started on 20kg with the Jefferson curl and I underestimated the power of this exercise to stretch the connective tissue of the back. I also had some pain afterwards for several days. I then went to a 2.5kg plate and added 1kg when I could do the exercise comfortably. Now I can do 30kg with no problem. This has taken over 6 months so do not hurry ..."

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks for clarifying that coach. I think this should be add to the course notes so people are aware of the weight requirement.

Coach, thank you for the great replies; extremely pertinent. Using 24kg with my current rom (bar level with/just below toes) did not feel particularly challenging, but I guess it was too challenging, I just didn't know it. A good lesson that I will learn from.

Two days on and fingers crossed I seem to have gotten away lightly; now only mildly sore but quite stiff.

I will tentatively be trying out my usual exercises to see what causes pain and then move on gradually from there.

Thanks

Andy

What set and rep scheme should we use once this is in our warmup, 5x5 or 21, 15, 9?

Coach Sommer said:

20kg with correct ROM is the acceptable standard for progressing onward to the next iM. full bodyweight Jefferson Curls is my preference.

 

Can someone please explain to me why more weight is better?

 

I understand that the weight assists stretching the pike by pulling your shoulders towards the ground. I imagine if you keep doing this, you would eventually stretch into a full pike. I would think 20kg is sufficient to do this.

 

So what does more weight achieve? Is there a straight-legged deadlift strength aspect to this?

There is a large fascia in the lower back called the thoracic-lumbar dorsal fascia that is very tough. This is the only exercise I have done that seems to stretch that tissue. I was very tight in the lumbar spine due to a 20 year exaggerated lumbar lordosis. This exercise was great for flexing my lumbar spine. Unweighted stretching never seemed to be enough.

There does also seem to be a stiff legged deadlift strength element to this exercise as well.

The bottom position also has a traction effect that helps to glide the facet joints open.

Thanks Mark. Definitely time to get me something heavy.

 

Is it something that can be done every day? Or best to leave 48 hours?

As long as you treat the exercise as a mobility exercise and not go close to a max effort you should be able to do this daily. I used 32kg in my last session, but felt I could go 10-20kg heavier. At this weight I can do the Jefferson curl daily without effecting my recovery.

This is some very good discussion, as I too was unaware of the ultimate weight goal (bodyweight). I've been using the same weight (65 lbs) for months now and have been improving by gradually increasing my rom. I simply keep adding objects to what I'm standing on - cinder blocks plus a 2x8 board and when I'm able to complete all 25 tried with the weight touching the floor in good form I add another later to the height. Armed with this info, I may add a small amount of weight once my current level of stretch is achieved. And based on how far I have to go to achieve the straddle up for mastery, I'm pretty confident I'll be doing J curls with my bodyweight before I can do one full straddle up!

Jeffersun curl is saving my back on the deadlift session. i've reached the 70% of my BW and i'm 79 kg .no pain, no injury, only  6  months to build it up.

What would be a good average starting point in terms of weight?