As someone with back pain, what were the lifestyle changes?
I went to physical therapy for two months because that’s all insurance would pay for. My spine was weak and lacked stability. They had me doing stretches for back mobility and core strengthening. I continued that when insurance ran out and added in a lot of walking and other light weights and calisthenics.
It’s been a long journey and I’m only half way to where I was. The worst part is I did it to myself by becoming sedentary for to many years.
I can’t tell you to do this because I don’t know your medical history, but slowly working your way up to medium weight training can also be a game changer. Re: squats, Romanian deadlifts, pull ups, dead hangs.
Exercise is great, but don't lift too much weight. Prefer more reps instead.
Mine was because I have the posture of a lump of VERY wet clay.
Also, losing weight helped a lot - less to carry around and hold in the right places.
My dad had a business installing mainframes when I was young - back when mainframes were still installed in individual businesses, you know. At the time I was a kid, but I know we always had some of the first tech on the block, so I doubt many had tech before me.
I'm reaching the age where I can no longer handle a bad posture - I assume this is going to start getting bigger in the next 5-10 years. I could be wrong, I dunno, but I don't think so.
It suggests simple tests to discover exactly where your pain is coming from and then appropriate exercises to mechanically strengthen the right area and a few workarounds to avoid stressing that area in regular life e.g. alternate ways to pick up light items from the floor.
McGillcs big three are three simple exercises that are generally good for those with no patience for ordering a book and intros to them can be found all over YouTube.
Eliminated my back pain and led to a bunch of other non obvious life improvements.
It's been a couple years, now, and honestly I wish I'd made the change sooner. I haven't lost any functional strength, and my recovery is a lot smoother. Haven't had any injury since, either.
I now rotate between high rep (sets of 20 rep max) and medium weight weeks (sets of 8-12 reps). My joints haven’t ached in a while and I’ve become much less prone to random muscle tweaks. Mike Isreatel has an excellent intro to high rep training [0]. It produces pumps and mind-muscle connection like nothing else!
I actually went too far into the high rep/volume training direction for several months, but realized I needed to reincorporate medium weight lifts when I started losing a bit of grip strength. I am now super content with my current rotation cycle!
The only change I've made is two train only twice a week, rather than three or four times. Thinking of doing the split in Radically Simple Muscle, though, where it is 2 heavy compound lift days per week and a 3rd bodybuilding/machine day.
The absolutely liberating feeling that comes with the noob gains is incredible. Knowing you can lift those weights, safely, without injury, was an incredible experience for me. I topped off at a hair below 100kg squats before life got in the way.
Once you need more complicated programming to make progress, your noob phase is probably over.
For what it's worth, I got up to 170kg backsquats at about 72kg body weight back in the day. The most complicated programming I did was a weekly cycle. ('Texas method'.)
But that was only down to thighs parallel to the ground. Years later I worked more on my flexibility to be able to squat all the way down (but with less weight).
I admit, though, unless you compete killing yourself for 6 months to go from 250kg deadlift to 252.5kg is probably not worth the effort.
Lower: lose weight, get moving, strengthen hips, glutes and calves.
Upper: lose weight, get moving, strengthen chest, lats, core
Walk every morning. Walk every hour (unless sleeping). Walk uphill every day (see documentary on Blue Zones).
But for now: just focus on resisting the urge to tell me why it can’t be done… Like Nike’s slogan: “Just do it”
Good luck, it’s though, and painful but it gets better.
With my husband (and probably most people who already already suffering with pain) the pain was too much to walk, and walking was very much counterproductive, so this is bad advise, especially the l "focus on resisting the urge to tell me why it can’t be done" part. It's not the type of pain that you can just power through. He said the pain caused his legs to physically stop working. He had to do PT exercises first and build up to walking.