As with most of my blogs, this is for me more than it is for you. Luckily for you all I get tons of feedback on how simply sharing my journey has helped others.
Everything was going along swimmingly with my body until my back decided to take a sh!t on Friday. This was not an acute injury either. I woke up Friday and was like WTF is going on with my back.
If I had to guess I would say it was from my deadlift volume on Wednesday. However, sleeping the wrong way has been known to wreck me.
So on Friday with my back out of commission and a nagging shoulder I figure I'd go with a rehab session. Instead of training, I spent an hour on rehab/prehab exercises.
Saturday morning my shoulder was very grateful for the rehab work, but my back was not. Mind you, everything I did for it was very gentle. That's when I quickly realized, what my back wanted was some passive recovery.
I know I haved said it here, but I continue to relearn, sometimes the best answer for an injury or a flare up is time. In the past I would continue to try and rush recovery. Not now. The most important thing I can do is practice good back hygeine.
Back hygeine for me is pretty basic. Be careful how I bend, pick things up, reach overhead, sit, get up, etc. It sounds easy, but all it can take is one slight wrong move to turn a few days or weeks of recovery into months.
Most importantly for me, back hygeine includes paying particular attention to how I sleep. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of bed accoutrement. The amount of pillows and wedges I have fill an entire closet.
I have always been a side sleeper. However, that is not best for my back or shoulders. What's best is that I sleep on an incline with one pillow under my hamstrings and one pillow tucked under each arm. It's a sight for sure. But, it keeps me from moving around.
For training lower body I'll take a week off. I'll walk and do some bodyweight squats. If I continue to progress I'll feel things out as I go. Anything that feels even the least bit funky is out.
We all know those things we can ignore while training and get away with them. With my back I can't. That's been the hardest thing to learn. It gets one shot at a little rehab work and if it doesn't take, rest is what's called for.
