If you missed the blog the first week of Dec on Deadlifts for Back Pain, there’s some great information on what to do even starting day 1 of a back injury. This blog won’t go over the acute phase (when it’s irritable) as that blog arleady did. Check it out here.

This week, we’re focusing on modifying exercises and progressions while working back towards performing conventional deadlifts. Which builds on the 2nd deadlift series blog. If you haven’t yet, go check that one out and see if there are any technique correctives that will help out. Hip hinge pattern and lat engagement are important here, and that goes over both of those.

If you aren’t quite back to being able to perform a hinge pattern without pain, there are still some good options to keep up strength! As I mentioned in the first blog in this series, back strength is important to recover from back pain and to decrease the risk of future issues. One of the best things to start working on this without going into painful patterns is static midline / lumbar stability work. So anytime you have deadlifts in the workout, but you can’t yet do a hip hinge, sub it out for one of the following drills that focus on midline stability and extensor strength (make sure to discuss with your coach which option may be best so you can try to keep the intended workout stimulus as much the same as possible):

The Beiring-Sorensen Test is something that’s used to test lumbar extensor strength and endurance, but it’s also a great drill to use to improve it. It’s often done on a GHD machine, but I made this setup is I didn't have one available at the time. If your get a set up like this going, make sure your feet are well stabilized! (I may or may not have had to retake this video 4 times to get my feet set right to actually demo this drill) And I know it doesn't necessarily look like my back is in neutral from this angle, but I promise it is 😊. Test/drill stops when you are no longer able to control your midline and come out of neutral position.

Other exercises include the walkouts from the first blog in the series, heavy farmers carry (start bilateral and then progress to one side - much harder to control staying upright), and plank variations. These all really drill in midline stability, which is needed to help strengthen and support the back. One more option is the classic drill the Palloff Press. Here, I’ve added a small weight plate to the band for an extra bit of stability challenge (thank you to my friend, Kelcey, for being the demo!), but there are TONS other variations:

Reverse Hypers or Hip Extensions are another great option. With these, you are going through the same movement pattern and engaging the same muscles that you would in a hip hinge or deadlift, but your trunk is supported and therefore doesn’t fire off pain signals as readily. Note that you should squeeze your glutes and the motion ends before your back has to arch to get any further. Some gyms may have a reverse hyper to perform these on, like in the video below from Bret Contreras. Or you can do them with or without a band using a GHD like here (can also use a table in the same fashion kinda like this.) Or use ankle weights instead of a band. Or, like this video link, a swiss ball

Sumo deadlift variations are a great option, as your trunk stays more upright and you do not have to hinge as much. I like using the band with a kettle bell as shown since it’ll add resistence progressively as you come up, but allows less tension in the bottom range of motion, which is typically where symptoms may show at heavier weights. Can also be done with a barbell. Make sure your trunk stays upright and think about breaking a band that’s around your knees (ie don’t let them cave in - helps open up your hips enough to stay upright). Pull the weight in towards you (shoulder blades pulled back to engage lats) and drive through the floor as you lift the weight up.

Hip hinge progressions: (if you need a refresher on hip hinge technique, go back to this blog) perform within ranges where pain does not go past 4/10 pain. Start with a medball lower towards your hip and perform a hip hinge. Then progress to goblet hold hip hinges (kettlebell held to the chest). Then to barbell good mornings. - This allows you to start with a relatively short lever arm, therefore less demand on the back, and then progress as able to a longer lever arm!

About the time that the goblet hip hinges are feeling ok, you can start returning to conventional deadlift - just start pulling from blocks that are high enough so you stay in a painfree range of motion, even if that means starting with 20” boxes under the plates on each side. As you progress, decrease the height of those blocks until you’re performing full range from the ground! (pro-tip: J-hooks set low in the rig are easy to incrementally lower as you progress)

Obviously, this is not an all inclusive list. There are tons more exercises/drills that can be done to improve back strength and get back to deadlifting. Such as trap bar deadlifts are a great option in between sumo and conventional, if you have access to one of those bars. The above are just examples of some of my go-to’s. As is, this many may be overload info for some of you, so I didn’t want to further push my luck. Do you have any others you like to do or any questions about the info above? Shoot me a DM or drop it in the comments below!

Want personalized help with back pain? Text me at 480-751-2137 or click the appointment tab above and we’ll get something set up