Strange lower back pain

Hi all.

For some years I have experienced lower back pain, which is very pronounced when I do the "seal stretch". The pain usually surfaces after standing up or walking around for hours. In addition to the pain after doing the activities I get very low mobility; bending backwards causes pain, and bending forwards causes my back to make snappinglike sounds when I try to force myself to touch my toes.

When I am thoroughly warmed up and I do a pike stretch the pain surfaces yet again when I afterwards do my seal stretch. The more I switch between the stretches the less the pain and limited mobility.

I think I have above average flexibility in pike positions and bridge stretch (can almost do a full bridge and I can touch my arches in a seated pike position.

As I started to do hollow body holds and arched holds my back problems somewhat faded into only being a nuinsance. I figured my problem is too much flexibility and too little strength in my lower back, but I want to hear your opinion about my issue.

Sorry for bad english. Please feel free to ask clarifying questions.

My guess, you're bending at the lumbar spine too much and too little in the rest, could be caused by tight hip flexors. A picture of your bridge would explain a lot.

I could write the same first paragraph, and i have an herniated disc L5-S1. Standing a few moments makes my lower back hurt and lose all the mobility. The same happens at the morning when my muscles are cold, just doing the coffee standing up makes my lower back suffer to the point that i have to sit down like a 85 years old man. After warm up my lower back feel much better to the  point of being able to do round off and back flip. I can also do deadlifts with more than 100 kg without problem or run 13 km. But just standing up few minutes  is the worst thing i can do to my lower back.

So maybe you could visit your doctor to discard problems.

serotonin said:

I could write the same first paragraph, and i have an herniated disc L5-S1. Standing a few moments makes my lower back hurt and lose all the mobility. The same happens at the morning when my muscles are cold, just doing the coffee standing up makes my lower back suffer to the point that i have to sit down like a 85 years old man. After warm up my lower back feel much better to the  point of being able to do round off and back flip. I can also do deadlifts with more than 100 kg without problem or run 13 km. But just standing up few minutes  is the worst thing i can do to my lower back.

 

So maybe you could visit your doctor to discard problems.

I don't think I am as unlucky as you are, with me it is more like standing/walking for 4+ hours that makes my back hurt. When I try to touch my toes I feel much better after stretching. But then I cannot bend backwards very much.

Duff said:

My guess, you're bending at the lumbar spine too much and too little in the rest, could be caused by tight hip flexors. A picture of your bridge would explain a lot.

I don't train bridge. I just happen to have the required flexibility for it (even though shoulder flexibility might be lacking in terms of developing a perfect bridge). I think I have tight hip flexors.

Tight hip flexors are often accompanied by inactive gluteus maximus and overactive hamstrings, which all together puts your hip joint in a position where there's a lot of strain on your lower back. Stretching and arched holds will do wonders to fix this. Hollow holds also help by strengthening the abdominals, preventing hyperextension of the back.

This could be what is causing the problem, but I recommend seeking out medical advice, preferably from someone who won't just prescribe you pills.

Edit: Found a well written blog post about this: http://www.ptonthenet.com/blogpostprint.aspx?BlogPostID=287

Thank you very much! Very good blog indeed.

What I figured out from that article was that one should reverse the reciprocal inhibitition by stretching the hip flexors and learning to better activate gluteus maximus (through arched holds).