I had acute low pain 2 days ago. It was painful and I couldn’t move for about 5 minutes. If you have the same experience, you know this would happen when you are just doing daily things such as just picking up something from the floor or like me just put pants on in a single leg position. whatever happened happened. I need to think about what I could do after this.
These are all based on my personal experiences. If your doctor or physio say something, you should follow them.
RICE principle first
You will learn this when taking a CPR course.
- Rest
- Ice
- Compress
- Elevation
There is still an argument between heat and ice, some believe heat is better because it creates the blood circulation but if an injury just happened, it is better to use “ice” for next 24 – 48hours since the area is inflamed.
But should you avoid all the things you have been doing and rest until you have no pain? I hardly believe you should. Instead you should start moving as long as you feel no pain by doing that movement. Active recovery can make you go back to normal life faster I think. Remember there is no magic pill to heal your body but your body is the only one that can make you recover and heal.
Type of exercises
While training for gymnastics and I had the worst low back pain, Come to think about it, I was truly an idiot. I kept doing backhandspring with low back pain that lingered the low back pain for 2 – 3 months. This type of exercise is definitely not your choice.
Birddog (only leg)
Although I think this is the best choice to train your abs, glute without hurting the low back, repetitive hip extension movement may be too challenging for the first couple of days or even weeks. Also adding arm movements may be tough for the low back (It was for me). I just focused on hip extension. Then try this with isometric focus that means you want to hold the hip extended position for 5 seconds, and do 3 – 5 reps each.
Plank on knee
To strengthen the “Core” area, it is better to do isometric exercise, I tried plank on my knee. You may feel not much if you have been working out for so long but better than nothing. I felt no pain during and after.
They are only exercises I felt no pain. I tried glute bridge and again repetitive hip extension movement is too tough for someone with low back pain. I also tried side plank on my knee but most my low back pain comes from left quadratus lumborum, I felt a bit painful while performing and stopped it.
Of course you can do upper body exercises (light weight maybe) as long as there is no pain during and “after”. However, if any of these exercises makes your condition worse, you need to consider regressing.
Avoid those movement if you have Low Back Pain