back stops me from great abs

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fitworkhere
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back stops me from great abs

Post by fitworkhere »

Hi ! First post here !

I'm trying to understand why I could never do ab exercises ?

I'm early 30s, healthy diet, active, slim. I've tried several times and every variety since over 15yrs ago but the same problem keeps happening. lower back gets tight, starts to burn and eventually I have to stop myself from fear of hurting back. The only one I've been able to do is one where I'm either sitting on a chair or standing with a slight hunch and do crunches with a very slight fold of the upper body all without lifting the legs.

I've basically accepted limitation without knowing the proper reason but it's recently caused another problem. Over the past 4 months I've been lifting weights and gained 10lbs above normal weight for the first time in 15yrs. Lately, that same lower back pain creeps up whenever I lift weights and has been causing a lot of discomfort even days after a workout. Doesn't seem to matter what exercise I do.

I'm confident I'd be fine if I just gave up the weights entirely as a last resort but I like lifting and hope there is some explanation to all this ?

* only back injury growing up was falling down a flight of stairs on back. At the time it was very painful and I remember being surprised that I could get up after 1 minute. After a week the pain from that was gone and there was no concern to see a doctor.


Thank you very much for any help !!!
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Boss Man
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Re: back stops me from great abs

Post by Boss Man »

There could be varying reasons I feel for the back pain.

1. A significant difference between the strength levels of the front core where the abs and the obliques are and the lower back areas, where the lower erectors, lower multifidus and quadratus lumborum are.

2. You are in the early stages of some kind of medical condition.

3. Your technique on one or more exercises is not good enough.

4. Your diet is not adequate enough, I:E you are not providing your spine and other skeletal areas, with enough nutrition to be in good health, as many of the nutrients in your diet E:G calcium, phosphorus, vit D, vit K2, copper, Vit C etc, play a direct or indirect role in bone formation and quality.

5. Some kind of undiagnosed anomelie, resulting from the previous injury.

6. A combination of any of those things.

I would say for now you would be better ot alay any concerns by consulting a medical mind, because you don't know if what you're doing and what you're feeling could be resulting from cumulative damage to the area, or just issues with technique or dietry related bone quality for example.

However we could at least for now assess what your eating is like, so what times do you eat and what foods do you eat at those times?
Alinshop
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Re: back stops me from great abs

Post by Alinshop »

Maybe i missed something, but maybe it would help to do exercises to build up your core which in turn would help your back.
fitworkhere
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Re: back stops me from great abs

Post by fitworkhere »

Boss Man wrote:There could be varying reasons I feel for the back pain.

1. A significant difference between the strength levels of the front core where the abs and the obliques are and the lower back areas, where the lower erectors, lower multifidus and quadratus lumborum are.

2. You are in the early stages of some kind of medical condition.

3. Your technique on one or more exercises is not good enough.

4. Your diet is not adequate enough, I:E you are not providing your spine and other skeletal areas, with enough nutrition to be in good health, as many of the nutrients in your diet E:G calcium, phosphorus, vit D, vit K2, copper, Vit C etc, play a direct or indirect role in bone formation and quality.

5. Some kind of undiagnosed anomelie, resulting from the previous injury.

6. A combination of any of those things.

I would say for now you would be better ot alay any concerns by consulting a medical mind, because you don't know if what you're doing and what you're feeling could be resulting from cumulative damage to the area, or just issues with technique or dietry related bone quality for example.

However we could at least for now assess what your eating is like, so what times do you eat and what foods do you eat at those times?
Thank you for such an exhaustive enumeration !!!
I agree that the possibility of cumulative damage is too high to ignore and yes I will be seeing a doctor in a couple weeks.

1. I'm not sure I totally understand what this point means...

2. I'd say this is unlikely as the pain appeared a couple months after gaining 10lbs and increases on exercise days.

3. I won't say form is always perfect but I have removed any exercise that I thought I was potentially doing bad form on over a month ago. I also lowered the weights and stopped reaching failure. Movements are always very slow and steady. routine is about 1/5th in volume compared to what it was over a month ago.
The few exercises I kept are the flat bench chest press, pushups, dumbbell curls/extensions/skullcrush. I would say that the chest day exercises make the back more sore than the arm day ones but both days make it sore. I noticed that chair dips and a bad incline bench were causing significant strain before I cut them out even though they are two of favorites to do.

4. Rarely any processed or fried foods except for about 5 chips/day just for the taste. Cookies only during the holidays so I have eaten more than I should of those right now :p Once a month I'll make a large lasagna or pizza for a couple of dinners. Rarely add salt to food except for on the monthly steak. A stick of butter lasts about 4 months. I normally drink several glasses of water each day. 3 days/week I'll have a glass premium OJ but never any sodas. 1% milk only with cereal and the occasional scoop of whey (usually once/week) when I feel I haven't eaten enough for the day. I'll usually have 1 or 2 beers on Fridays.

Breakfast i'll usually have cheerios+milk+raisins and twice a week i'll instead have 2eggs+ham+1whole grain toast with peanut butter.
Dinner: Various combinations of 3 or more legumes+potatoes/long grain and brown rice/whole grain tortilla+chicken/lentils/quinoa/chickpeas/turkey/beef/fish
Evening: 1banana+natural yogurt+homemade granola(sweetness from a bit of honey)
Nighttime: 1Toast+pb and/or hard boiled egg and/or some meat.

I've always worn 32" jeans but since the 10lbs gain I need 33" jeans. bf% is around 15% but that's a very loose guess. More of a gut than I like but not so big that there's visible love handles.

5. Maybe but until it's proven I'll assume I'm doing something wrong...
fitworkhere
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Re: back stops me from great abs

Post by fitworkhere »

Alinshop wrote:Maybe i missed something, but maybe it would help to do exercises to build up your core which in turn would help your back.
Even when I was 14 I wasn't able to do ab exercises for long before getting the same back pain. Back then I played several sports for about 4hrs/day. I was routinely picked as a top skilled player among peers. I've always been very active and I'd say core has always been pretty solid. I've had washboard abs until late 20s just due to secondary influence if that makes a difference. It is mostly the ab intensive exercises where I am well below average...

Apart from weightlifting which has always been an off n on thing for 15yrs, I still try to stay active. I do yoga once a week and alternate between different forms of cardio 1-2 times/week like bike riding or HIIT or swimming for about 30mins.

Had I quit the weights when I normally do after a couple months of training and 0 weight gain I don't think I'd be having these problems...but it's frustrating and confusing :/
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Boss Man
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Re: back stops me from great abs

Post by Boss Man »

The thrust of the point that I was making was that the bakc pain could be related to possibly having a stronger abdominal area than lower back area, because when you did certain movments either when exercising, or in every day life, I:E getting out of bed, you might feel some kind of back pain, potentially due to the front of your core pushing onto the lumbar, sacral and coxyx areas of the vertebrae and not having enough muscle in the areas I mentioned in previous post, to protect the spine adequately and maintain its posture properly.

As for the diet, it seems good in the main, but I think you could potentially increase your meals by having a snack between the main meals.

There are plenty of foods you can choose from that make up partial or complete snacks.

Things like beef, turkey, chicken or ham from a packet, microwaved soups, baked beans and soups, vegetables like celery sticks, carrot sticks, lettuce and pineapple, fruits including tomato and cucumber, nuts, peanuts, pre-boiled eggs, low fat cheese, low suger yoghurt, flaxseeds, oat granolas, wholegrain bread and sandwiches.

So you've got plenty of options there.
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