Pulled back muscle

[larry@lyndevalley.com]

You probably know the spot, about 6" around back at the level of your hip bone. Probably pulled it near the end of a row, reaching a little too far while pulling.

Need to get it better for the JVRC, but its been about 4 days and its still the same. Stretching out the lats and hamstrings seems to help, but is short lived.

Anyone have experience with this?

[chgoss]

You probably know the spot, about 6" around back at the level of your hip bone. Probably pulled it near the end of a row, reaching a little too far while pulling.

Need to get it better for the JVRC, but its been about 4 days and its still the same. Stretching out the lats and hamstrings seems to help, but is short lived.

Anyone have experience with this?

More experience than I care to admit... Rest, heating pad, EASY stretching, massage (if you can talk your significant other into it), Advil-Advil-Advil.
When it gets better, be sure to do a lot of core strenghtening stuff (sit-ups), and keep the back straight when erging..

good luck w/it!

[Rockin Roland]

Stationary ergs such as the C2 are notorious for causing lower back injuries. Your not the first and won't be the last. Make sure you are using correct technique when you get back on it so it doesn't happen again.

In the meantime lots of walking is the best cure. Stretching weakens and can tear the muscles further so gentle exercise is better. Too much lying around and rest will only lengthen the recover time.

Also make sure that your bed mattress is firm and supportive and that it's not a water mattress.

[igoeja]

Although counterintuitive, I get almost immediate relief by lifting.

One time in particular, I was waiting for the ache to subside, but didn't go away for a month. I said f---- this and did some free weights, starting with a bent row. Immediate relief.

Also, I've found some other things that cause minor aching:

- Sleeping prone
- Shoulder bags that are placed high, rather than around the hips
- Sitting upright

As for the last bullet, at least one study showed that the highest lower back stresses were incurred sitting straight up, with the least pressure while slouching back, and slightly more leaning forward.

PS, Stretching is bad. Although not bad for all muscle groups, do not stretch your lower back. Quads maybe, but otherwise, stretching has repeatedly been shown to correlate with injury in endurance athletes.

[grams]

How about getting an elastic back brace? One that is pretty big. I have one left o it. Maybe it simply encourages me to keep my back straight but it does make a difference.

grams

[larry@lyndevalley.com]

Its almost back to normal. Light rowing every day, paying attention to proper technique, with some crunches to strengthen the abs, along with being more mobile has done the trick. Sitting at a desk last week was not good for it, in fact it only seems to bother me when sitting. Walking around loosens it up.

Light weights have been fine, including very light lat pulldowns. I suspect I strained a tendon at the bottom of the lat where it attaches to the ilium (pelvic bone).

Thx for your advice all!

[Rowan11088]

"PS, Stretching is bad. Although not bad for all muscle groups, do not stretch your lower back. Quads maybe, but otherwise, stretching has repeatedly been shown to correlate with injury in endurance athletes."

Really? I hadn't heard anything of the sort. If you have a source, please send it along, as I stretch out my back literally every day before, during and after exercise. I honestly can't erg or run without properly stretching (and "cracking") my back.

[igoeja]

Stretching is nonsensical dogma, and although there might be instances where it is useful, it is repeatedly prescribed in ways that likely increase injury. There are too many studies to send, but if you look at the whole of research on stretching, there is little proven value.

- Several studies over the past twenty years have shown correlations between injury and stretching among endurance athletes. Granted injured people might stretch more, but generally, people that don't stretch don't have injuries.

- Overviews of large number of studies are equivocal, that there is no specific reason to support, nor reject, stretching.

- My own review of hundreds of studies in PubMed, of the few that were specific, one found it beneficial (quads in military recruits), and a few others that were negative for lower back and ankle stretching.


If you review the studies, you will find very few that show real, tangible benefits to stretching. A pronouncement of benefit is not proof. Many people believe that stretching is useful, but it is primarily unproven dogma. Warming before working out makes sense, to reduce muscle tears, but otherwise...

[igoeja]

Some conclusions from the top 60 studies in PubMed while searching on stretching are below. I have not cherry-picked the results, but took everything that seemed related to stretching, exercise, and injury.

1/

Although many theories have been published regarding the potential benefits and limitations of stretching, few studies have been able to definitively demonstrate its utility in injury prevention.

2/

Until further evidence is available, current practice and widely published rehabilitation protocols cannot either be supported or refuted.

3/

Recently, it has been shown that ballistic stretching can significantly increase tendon elasticity. These findings have important clinical implications for treatment and prevention of tendon injuries.

(Note: ballistic stretching is currently non recommended)

4/

Many mechanisms underlying stretching exercises still demand investigation so that links between the observed effects, their causes and the consequences may be constructed.

5/

All but one study had moderate to high potential for bias, so results must be viewed cautiously. Adding pregnancy-specific exercises, physiotherapy or acupuncture to usual prenatal care appears to relieve back or pelvic pain more than usual prenatal care alone, although the effects are small. We do not know if they actually prevent pain from starting in the first place. Water gymnastics appear to help women stay at work. Acupuncture shows better results compared to physiotherapy.

6/

The rehabilitation programme should be built around progressive agility and trunk stabilisation exercises, as these exercises seem to yield better outcome for injured skeletal muscle than programmes based exclusively on stretching and strengthening of the injured muscle.

7/

The evidence derived from mainly laboratory-based studies of stretching indicate that muscle stretching does not reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness in young healthy adults.

8/

Calf muscle stretching provides a small and statistically significant increase in ankle dorsiflexion. However, it is unclear whether the change is clinically important.

(I know of a specific study showing ankle stretching post injury increased the likelihood of reinjury.)

9/

Even without considering the above limitations, there is no substantial scientific evidence to support the use of the recovery modalities reviewed to enhance the between-training session recovery of elite athletes. Modalities reviewed were massage, active recovery, cryotherapy, contrast temperature water immersion therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, compression garments, stretching, electromyostimulation and combination modalities.

[Rockin Roland]

There was an article in "Peak Performance" sports journal over 12 months back about stretching. They tested a group of elite 100m sprinters and another group of weight lifters. The results showed that the 100m sprinters that had a stretching routine before the event had consistantly slower times than those that did not stretch. Likewise with the lifters. The weight lifters that did not stretch performed better with higher max lifts.

The studies then progressed to long distance runners. They found that distance runners that had a stretching routine before the run were more prone to injury than those that replaced the stretching routine with a gentle aerobic warm up.

[larry@lyndevalley.com]

I've also heard the new findings about stretching. I can see how it would decrease performance as it would elongate the muscles just prior to when you want them to contract their best. Not sure about injury prevention though.

I know that for volleyball we teach coaches to always do a dynamic (active) warm-up. No stretching. Drills that start out easy, using a ball, to get the athletes moving, with gradually increasing intensity. The goal is to increase the body temp 2-3 degrees, until they are just starting to perspire.

This might be viewed as stretching that mimics the mechanics of a game situation, but does not stretch beyond that. I wonder how sprinters would perform that did this, but didn't stretch?

But no static stretching, as static stretching will cause the body to immediately cool down.

It is critical to warm up the shoulders, especially for hitters, who will quickly injure themselves if they start hitting without being properly warmed up'.

[Byron Drachman]

This is a very interesting thread. I never had any interest in stretching until about a year ago when I got a back ache. It was excruciating. I remember asking someone to help me out of the boat and carry the boat back to the boat house. I could hardly move. I assumed after a few days it would get better, but it just kept getting worse. Long story short: I went to a osteopathic clinic and got some manipulations. As they were doing the manipulations, I could feel my back loosening up. They gave me four very specific stretching exercises, which only take a few minutes, and I do them every day. I only do them after a hot bath, or when I am very warm having just finished a workout. The people at the clinic mentioned that I had some problems that they encounter with rowers and the specific exercises deal with those issues. Stretching might not be for everybody, but for me they made a huge difference.
Byron

[igoeja]

Mentioned in the literature, as well as now common practice, is core stabilization, or abdominal exercises to stabilize the midsection. It's not that stretching never works, but most might be better off stabilizing instead os stretching.

[George Dunning]

I have tight hamstrings and calves which means I can get into an acceptable posiition at the catch but wonder if being more flexible would 'make life easier'. How would I do this, stretching I guess .... or the fact that 'I can get far enough forward' is that enough.

george

ps at my age I struggle with the 'amount' of time it may take me to be able to touch my toes vs doing anything else more enjoyable and less painful