Exercise with back problems?

I am not a doctor and you should talk to your doctor. But I struggle with a compressed disc in my back from an accident in 1989. I am 55 years old now and it is worse than ever but I still exercise regularly.

I walk and go to yoga classes. Lately I've started riding my bicycle again but I find it does aggravate my back if I overdo it. I am going to invest in a better bicycle than the clunky old Schwinn I bought online and that might help. If it doesn't I just won't bike anymore. I use the elliptical cycle in the gym on rainy days, keep the resistance low and pedal moderately, don't overdo it.

I can walk 3 and a half miles with my dog with no back pain later. Anymore than that and I do feel it later in my back. I cannot jog at all.

As for yoga, I started with Hatha yoga which is just stretching and now I'm in an intermediate/advanced Vinyasa yoga taught by a teacher with back problems herself. It helps my back ALOT.

So... I guess... talk to your doctor and just use common sense. If it hurts, don't do it. If it feels okay, go for it. Learn your limitations and don't push it.

It depends largely on the nature of your back problems, but yes, there is a certain amount of "tough it out until you strengthen your back and lose some weight."

About eight years ago, I got a herniated disk in my lower lumbar, last October, I suffered some kind of compression injury that threw my hips off-balance. Both caused a large amount of pain, but with exercise, attention to ergonomics, and for the recent injury, decompression therapy from my chiropractor, I'm able to go largely pain-free for the vast majority of my time.

The big thing has always been back strength and hip mobility. A lot of the muscles in the lower back area are entwined in the hips, too, so hip mobility is important to dealing with lower back pain.

I've found that weight lifting has done wonders for my back, in part because good, full squats, not only require strength, but also require a flexible back and hips. Even just good bodyweight strength training with a focus on your whole core will be immensely useful (especially if you back is still weak and you're still in pain). Not just situps and crunches (in fact, situps may cause you more pain right now), but lunges (core stability for balance), squats, planks, oblique work, supermans, and many other exercises will help strengthen your back and start easing your pain.

The key, though, is to find the challenging exercises that don't specifically cause you pain. If you do a movement and the movement itself causes your body to feel like someone stabbed you with a sword, then do a different exercise, or modify it to give you a good workout, without causing you pain.

For example, I can't currently handle the torque pressure that full-plank positions put on my back, so I modify any plank-like exercises and do them with my knees down (changes where your center of gravity is). I also can't do v-sit type exercises, but I can do bicycles, and I can do the v-sit type stuff if I keep my feet on the ground (not really firmly planted, but just touching the ground changes the balance), allowing me to get the core workout, without putting excess pressure on my back.

Also, in your everyday life, make sure you're not doing things that exacerbate the issue, even if they don't always cause you pain. For example, my desk setup at work was putting too much pressure on my back, and while it only caused pain some days (and low level discomfort most others), it was still hurting me. So, I adjusted my work setup (in this case, I lowered my chair), and found that doing so took the pressure off of my back and kept me from being in pain, or even uncomfortable.

I have a lower back muscle injury. And I have been eating right, walking, sometimes biking. I lost 25lbs (in 3 months, 4 days) so far and I have noticed a difference in my back. I'm waiting to lose a little more weight before doing exercises that involve the back muscles more just to be careful. My doctor told me walking and biking will be the best bets for me to strengthen my lower back muscles. But she said it would take ALOT of walking and I'd be better off biking. When I accompany my friend to the gym, I use the bike, but I can't use my real bike until it warms up more.

Just a little FYI about me and what I did. Not sure what type of injury you have or what part of your back has been affected, but I hope my information helps you in any way it can.

Good luck! And hope you get more helpful info from some other wonderful people on the boards! :drinker:

Thank you. It's true, I should speak with my doctor on this. The unfortunate problem is that the two doctors I've been to seem to only want to throw prescriptions at me and not address what can help the problem.

At least for your back problems, ditch your doctors on this and go see a chiropractor or similar specialist, particularly if it's a spinal issue. Both my GP and a neurosurgeon just shrugged their shoulders at me when they looked at my x-rays and basically said "well, I could give you muscle relaxers and/or pain killers for it..." (I did take the muscle relaxers initially, because my doctor thought it was the muscles causing the pain, they didn't touch it). It wasn't until I went to a chiropractor and showed him my x-rays that a doctor actually confirmed what I knew all along -- it wasn't muscle pain. He noticed that a couple of vertebrae were closer than they should be, and that the x-rays showed a slight pelvic tilt (that was confirmed by both him, and several physical therapists previously, though the foot alignment test), and immediately started me on decompression therapy (traction, basically). It was a lifesaver. I went from not being able sit or lay down for any length of time, and even being in severe pain when I so much as roll over in bed, to not being in any pain for the most part, and only having a little pain when rolling over in bed (we're still working on getting things fixed).