Back Pain for Lifters: Causes, Treatments, & Red Flags

The general approach is to focus on what you can do.

If a lifter experiences a tweak during the workout, a general approach is to do the following:

• reduce load first
• next, reduce range of motion
• next, vary the exercise selection
• be prepared to end the workout

As a coach, do not encourage or support client catastrophizing. Training curious, see what works. Even if the workout has to be ended, most likely the client will feel better after a day or two and with something easy movements like bending over at the waist to get blood flowing into the back.

Motion is lotion.

For someone with new back that comes in, encourage them to see how the back feels after a warm up (and likely a slower, longer warm up). If they are still not feeling good, than follow the steps above. Often times, though, they will feel better after a warm up.

If someone comes in with chronic back pain, they are used to back pain. Focus on excellent technique and be more conservative with them. Ensure that the back pain does not get worse, and see if it gets better. Communication will be critical, and you may include a back pain metric that helps you and the client ensure pain monitoring is a regular part of the coaching process.

If the back pain is bad and normal enough, they might never do the conventional deadlift. Focus on what they can do. If the conventional deadlift or low bar squat causes significant pain or things to get worse, it does not make sense to force them into these movement patterns.

Back Pain for Lifters: Red Flags that Contraindicate Training