The Task: Conventional deadlifts
The Weight: 225 lbs
The Problem: I was not fully focused.
The Result: Severe SI joint sprain
February 23, 2017 at approximately 12:45 pm my injury occurred. I was in the middle of treating patients and I tried to squeeze in a workout between sessions—big mistake. My plan was to hook a patient up to needles and while they were in the session I wanted to knock out my deadlifting sets. I hooked my patient up and told them I would be back in 20 minutes, I left the room, and did a warm up round with 155 lbs—I felt good. My goal was to do 5 sets of 5 reps of 225 lbs. I felt confident in this weight because I had done it before, and I figured today would be like any other day. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I began the set with 225 lbs and on my third repetition I felt IT happen. I felt a slipping sensation somewhere in my low back and I knew I was going to be in pain later. I did not know how serious it would be because I finished my set, which was dumb. When I set the weights down, I could barely stand up and I began to feel immediate muscle spasming occur.
Now, I had to figure out a way to put the weights back and get back to my patient, and see the rest of my patients for the day. Thankfully, I was able to muster enough adrenaline to make it through the day and make a marketing event without too much pain.
The next days, I experienced pain, stiffness, and weakness. My pain occurred when I tried to stand up. It took a good 5-45 seconds for my low back to relax in order for me to stand up straight. There were also times my leg would give out when walking and I would need to gracefully fall down. Thankfully, I knew how to heal myself and I knew that it would just take time and proper rehabilitation and care from my friends at Art of Health Chiropractic to get back to normal. The next 5 days I slowly got better, I was even able to run 3 miles on the morning of February 27, but then March 1, 2017 came around and we hit a snag.
The night of March 1 and the morning of March 2 while I was sleeping my low back had a severe muscles spasm and I woke up around 2 am in severe pain! I could not roll out of bed without feeling excruciating pain. There was a point where I was laying there wondering, can I do anything today? The answer was no, or really not without having an extreme amount of pain. I was fearful of all movement, because it hurt and I did not want to be in pain. It dawned upon me that the last thing I would want to do is movement rehabilitation. However, I trusted my education and started the process of self healing.
If I was someone that did not have the education of anatomy and I experienced this pain, I would have ran to my medical doctor for advice. This is the situation that many people get into, they pull their low back, go to the medical doctor, order an x-ray/MRI/CT to find what is wrong. Sometimes they find and answer and sometimes they don’t and sometimes they find a false positive—to reaffirm the pain. This will either lead towards a prescription of pain medicine and trial of physical therapy, or prescription of pain medicine and surgery.
March 15th I woke up and got out of bed without feeling any stiffness. It took 3.5 weeks of self healing to fully recover. I learned a very valuable lesson. Always be in the moment and concentrate on form. But I also became aware of how the general public might deal with this type of pain.
If you ever have a traumatic injury please seek out a qualified professional who knows movement analysis. Three and a half weeks of self movement healing can lead to a better treatment outcome than 3.5 weeks of prescriptions medicine and unwarranted medical intervention.
This was my experience with pain. Everyone’s situation is unique. Please contact me if you are currently experiencing pain or if you unfortunately experience a traumatic injury in the future.