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Comment by toasterlovin | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a hypothesis everyone with chronic back pain should consider: because you sit at a desk all day and never lift heavy stuff, the natural process of atrophy has made your back too weak to support normal, day to day activity, causing your back to be sore all the time. If you want to test this hypothesis, all it takes is about 3 weeks of deadlifting 3x per week (takes about 20 minutes per workout, so an hour total per week).

Could be the best 3 hours you ever invest in anything your whole life.

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If you want to get the advantage of weights without the potential injuries, do very, very VERY slow reps with very small weights.

That's what I do, i'm quite muscular, but I do work on my shoulders with 4kg weights, no more. But my rep lasts a good 20 seconds (or more, the slower, the better). PER rep. I can tell you you'll feel it very quickly, you certainly don't need a ton to get a serious workout!

And and I'd like to concur, 15 years ago I had massive back/neck pain, and doing the weights on a regular basis completely cured that. Same 3 exercises.

Very small weights .. if you're already overweight then you're lifting quite a lot as is. Probably any new "lifting" regime should start with only body weight?

I had crippling back pain [literally, it put me to the floor, unable even to crawl] in the lower back that seems to have been guarded against with weekly Shotokan karate sessions - my hypothesis is that my sacroiliac joint was "tight" and that the emphasis on low stances and hip-rotation has loosened/strengthened it sufficiently to avoid damage. I did manage to damage my hamstring setting off to run though, now I warm up before I warm up!

I was about to mention this as well. In the list of things the author tried, they didn’t mention strength training. Since I started deadlifts, rack lifts, and more strength training in general I have had no back problems. Granted I’m sure this isn’t the solution for everyone of course, but with more desk zombies, I’m sure it’s more relevant than ever.

Just a reminder that any barbell lifts involving real weight can be as harmful as helpful if you are not properly trained or (like me) not smart about respecting your body’s limits. Deadlifts especially.

Most definitely. Must respect the weight. Ironically, I originally injured my back when lifting weights. In my case I was just being sloppy and beer may have been involved. :) This has been a hard lesson.

I can confirm this works for me, starting strength had changed my life in this regard. The mobile app has a phenomenal UX too for tracking progress with lifts, highly recommend it to anyone able bodied and looking to get into bar exercises for health reasons.

Sure, until you herniate your lower back doing deadlifts. Then what?

You're not going to herniate a disc getting up to a 135lb deadlift. But a 135lb deadlift would probably make most people's chronic lower back pain go away.

I love DLs, but you need to learn to do them properly. You can herniate a disc brushing your teeth.

What DLs do as a side effect is teach people how to pick up things properly. Most people are too tight in the their ankles, hips, and rest of their posterior chain so they are picking things up incorrectly all day long. This sets them up for injury. Learning to DL properly is a great way to teach how to properly pick thing up, and I agree it will likely help with most people's back pain. But, doing anything improperly can cause injury.

One can easily injure their spine lifting 10kg, nevermind ~60, as you claim.

recommending deadlifting to people with backpain sounds completely insane. At the minimum they should tell to do strength exercice under the strict supervision of a very good professional

How does one identify a very good professional? Serious question. I want to get started but I have no idea how to know who to trust.

You can't, basically. All the certifications are scams. The best is the CSCS but even that is watered down.

Buy Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and read it front to back. Then watch his videos/DVDs. Then execute the movements per the book and video them.

I wouldn’t ask someone working at the gym, but rather someone working as a doctor, like a physiotherapist.

Look for a Starting Strength coach here: https://startingstrength.org/site/coaches

Yeah, I guess I should have specified that I'm assuming you're not trying to DL 135 on your first workout.

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