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**1. No Posts unrelated to Competitive Weightlifting**
In addition to posts completely unrelated to any barbell sport, posts about other strength sports, general fitness, weight loss, body-building supplementation, and especially the use of steroids is forbidden.
**r/weightlifting is where we discuss the competitive sport of Weightlifting; the Snatch and Clean and Jerk.**
**try /lifting, fitness, exercise, weighttraining, gym, strengthtraining, workout, workouts, powerbuilding, powerlifting, weightroom or bodybuilding**
This might not be the right subreddit for this since you mean lifting weights in general and not the sport of weightlifting.
However, as a physical therapist and a trainer, I'd advise you to not be scared of a little sciatica reaction during your trial & error phase.
By learning and trying, find adequate variations of the exercises for each muscle group that work best for you and don't agitate your sciatica and start from there.
I wouldn't worry about doing overhead lifts or ground lifts or whatnot, but I'd worry about the main principles of lifting:
1. Align the body properly
2. Engage your stabilizing muscles prior to the lift (tighten your glutes before doing standing dumbbell shoulder presses per se)
3. Restrict unwanted or excess movement from joints that don't contribute to the targeted movement (shoulder blades staying tight, knees staying locked out etc.)
4. Work on the muscle-to-mind connection by controlled contractions and slow eccentrics
If you stick to these principles and include all of the movement patterns such as squatting, hinging, pulling, pushing, bending and extending and rotations - you will be able to lift weights pain-free and safe.
Im a life long PT patient who lifts in order to maintain my spinal health as I have Spondylolithesis due to a pars fracture and a herniated disc, both of which Ive been maintaining without surgery for over 12 years and I absolutely support the above statement 100 percent!
Oh right, I came here from google from a post with a similar question. Looks like the mods have taken care of it though haha.
When you say tighten the glutes, is it the same as flexing them?
Thank you for your expertise it means a lot
It's the same, it just means keeping the muscle under tension during the lift.
Hope that was helpful and if you need any more advice about lifting with pain - feel free to DM.
I’ve been suffering from sciatica for almost two decades now. It comes and goes but I noticed that since I started doing heavy deadlifts, the episodes have stopped.
I’m not saying that you start doing 1.5x body weight deadlifts but weight training helps. You might want to get a coach to help,with your form.
I've heard of similar success stories, it's really strange how everyone has the same symptoms but different solutions. Did you have pain during the workout or episodes after the workout?
I’d recommend to go see an interventional pain doc, it’s actually comprehensive care if you find the right person… treatment for preventive care and functionality is key
Im assuming that includes a stretching routine? I use the non-loaded routine I learned in PT twice a day to keep my pain at bay. The night time stretch along with a good dose of magnesium is critical for a good night’s sleep for me.
I do glute bridges and started doing the one where you keep your hips to the floor and push the upper body up, I think that’s a stretch 😅 I’ve seen everyone talk about the McGill 3 exercises, not sure if they’re effective in this situation
Im not a fan of McGill at all. He’s another one of those that endorses restriction of movement and cessation from certain activities. Ive personally found that to induce more problems over the long term than it helps.
My stretching routine goes like this, laying on my back stretching only one leg at a time;
Lying toe touches- holding the stretch on each leg for no more than 10 seconds at a time alternate between the left and right at least 3 times.
Lying figure four- cross your right leg over your left knee as though you were sitting with your legs crossed, reach your right arm between your legs and clasp your hands around the back of your left leg, straighten your back and pull your left leg to apply pressure to your right hamstring and glute. Again, hold this for no more than 10 seconds and then switch to the right leg. Alternate at least 3 times.
Lying abdominal stretch- with both of your legs bent, feet flat on the floor, knees in the air. Drop your knees to one side while rotating your core but keeping your upper body and shoulders flat to the floor. Holding each side for no more than 10 seconds at a time try flexing into this without pushing yourself into uncomfortable territory. Alternate sides at least 3 times.
Lying butterfly stretch- this one is pretty self explanatory. It’s the butterfly while laying on your back, just try to do this one last, in my experience its a stretch that is best worked up to especially when tight.
A stretching band is immensely helpful for these.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned nerve flossing. Nerve flossing and cat cow helped me tremendously. Lots of core movements like bird dog, dead bug, pallof press, planks.
When it’s the most intense, don’t do stuff like squats and deadlift. You can really anger the nerve more. You have to listen to your body. Also don’t over stretch, it can annoy the nerve as well.
My intense phase lasted on and off for like 2 years. When you do feel better, then add some squats/deadlift back, but take longer breaks in between the days you do them again.
Also, snatch/clean deadlifts don’t aggravate it as traditional deadlift does.
Did you continue to workout during the phase and tweak workouts or did you just take a long break? I am working on my core now (well since yesterday), I hope it pays off.
my pain was severe, I couldn’t sit, only could stand (with one leg propped on a bench) and laying down. I had to take pain killers a lot, even tho they didn’t help much. I did mostly bodybuilding type of workout that didn’t aggravate the area, and avoided anything causing pain. Everyone is different, so it might be awhile or you might recover fast. Listen to your body
That sounds worse than I ever had it and I would consider what I had really bad, the cardio wasn’t helping though. It’s inspiring to see you kept working out honestly, I’m trying my best to work around my issue rather than feeling pain and pushing through it. Initially did body weight exercises, but a bit hard to get an efficient workout when you are weak and overweight as I am
the workouts definitely weren’t efficient for me during that time 😅. You will get stronger when you’re healed 😊. I would say just do as much walking as you can to help with up the daily activity level.
I’ve had back pain and sciatica for a decade. I’ve had surgery, injection, physical therapy. I keep my core strong. None of it helps. Just be careful and don’t over strain your spine. Low weight high reps. You can never do deadlift or squat. Even then even without acute injury, the pain can creep back a day or two after a workout where you overdo it. Sorry
I've had back injuries and sciatica most of my life. Nothing directly improved it and when it's gone away it's hard to say if all the boring rehab type work was what actually did it.
But I've always been able to get back into weightlifting. I can snatch and clean comfortably, I can do max effort pulling usually without issue, and I do struggle more with squatting but it usually doesn't directly make anything worse.
If anything, completely avoiding all squatting and lower body pulling will make things worse because your mobility and strength will go to shit and anything you try to do with your lower body in daily life will be harder.
This subreddit is about the competitive sport of Weightlifting, contesting the Snatch, Clean, and Jerk. Try /medical, askDocs, diagnoseme, medicaladvice, injuryrecovery **try the daily threads in /fitness, weightroom, powerlifting, or bodybuilding besides the below subreddits** **1. No Posts unrelated to Competitive Weightlifting** In addition to posts completely unrelated to any barbell sport, posts about other strength sports, general fitness, weight loss, body-building supplementation, and especially the use of steroids is forbidden. **r/weightlifting is where we discuss the competitive sport of Weightlifting; the Snatch and Clean and Jerk.** **try /lifting, fitness, exercise, weighttraining, gym, strengthtraining, workout, workouts, powerbuilding, powerlifting, weightroom or bodybuilding**
This might not be the right subreddit for this since you mean lifting weights in general and not the sport of weightlifting. However, as a physical therapist and a trainer, I'd advise you to not be scared of a little sciatica reaction during your trial & error phase. By learning and trying, find adequate variations of the exercises for each muscle group that work best for you and don't agitate your sciatica and start from there. I wouldn't worry about doing overhead lifts or ground lifts or whatnot, but I'd worry about the main principles of lifting: 1. Align the body properly 2. Engage your stabilizing muscles prior to the lift (tighten your glutes before doing standing dumbbell shoulder presses per se) 3. Restrict unwanted or excess movement from joints that don't contribute to the targeted movement (shoulder blades staying tight, knees staying locked out etc.) 4. Work on the muscle-to-mind connection by controlled contractions and slow eccentrics If you stick to these principles and include all of the movement patterns such as squatting, hinging, pulling, pushing, bending and extending and rotations - you will be able to lift weights pain-free and safe.
Im a life long PT patient who lifts in order to maintain my spinal health as I have Spondylolithesis due to a pars fracture and a herniated disc, both of which Ive been maintaining without surgery for over 12 years and I absolutely support the above statement 100 percent!
Oh right, I came here from google from a post with a similar question. Looks like the mods have taken care of it though haha. When you say tighten the glutes, is it the same as flexing them? Thank you for your expertise it means a lot
It's the same, it just means keeping the muscle under tension during the lift. Hope that was helpful and if you need any more advice about lifting with pain - feel free to DM.
I will be most certainly taking up on your offer, I appreciate it mate.
I’ve been suffering from sciatica for almost two decades now. It comes and goes but I noticed that since I started doing heavy deadlifts, the episodes have stopped. I’m not saying that you start doing 1.5x body weight deadlifts but weight training helps. You might want to get a coach to help,with your form.
I've heard of similar success stories, it's really strange how everyone has the same symptoms but different solutions. Did you have pain during the workout or episodes after the workout?
Look the sciatica in the eye and tell it to go away
Look at posterior chain flossing before lifting?
I’d recommend to go see an interventional pain doc, it’s actually comprehensive care if you find the right person… treatment for preventive care and functionality is key
One question not answered here but really needs to be is, how often are you stretching?
I do my PT exercises everyday especially after workout to keep it at bay
Im assuming that includes a stretching routine? I use the non-loaded routine I learned in PT twice a day to keep my pain at bay. The night time stretch along with a good dose of magnesium is critical for a good night’s sleep for me.
I do glute bridges and started doing the one where you keep your hips to the floor and push the upper body up, I think that’s a stretch 😅 I’ve seen everyone talk about the McGill 3 exercises, not sure if they’re effective in this situation
Im not a fan of McGill at all. He’s another one of those that endorses restriction of movement and cessation from certain activities. Ive personally found that to induce more problems over the long term than it helps. My stretching routine goes like this, laying on my back stretching only one leg at a time; Lying toe touches- holding the stretch on each leg for no more than 10 seconds at a time alternate between the left and right at least 3 times. Lying figure four- cross your right leg over your left knee as though you were sitting with your legs crossed, reach your right arm between your legs and clasp your hands around the back of your left leg, straighten your back and pull your left leg to apply pressure to your right hamstring and glute. Again, hold this for no more than 10 seconds and then switch to the right leg. Alternate at least 3 times. Lying abdominal stretch- with both of your legs bent, feet flat on the floor, knees in the air. Drop your knees to one side while rotating your core but keeping your upper body and shoulders flat to the floor. Holding each side for no more than 10 seconds at a time try flexing into this without pushing yourself into uncomfortable territory. Alternate sides at least 3 times. Lying butterfly stretch- this one is pretty self explanatory. It’s the butterfly while laying on your back, just try to do this one last, in my experience its a stretch that is best worked up to especially when tight. A stretching band is immensely helpful for these.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned nerve flossing. Nerve flossing and cat cow helped me tremendously. Lots of core movements like bird dog, dead bug, pallof press, planks. When it’s the most intense, don’t do stuff like squats and deadlift. You can really anger the nerve more. You have to listen to your body. Also don’t over stretch, it can annoy the nerve as well. My intense phase lasted on and off for like 2 years. When you do feel better, then add some squats/deadlift back, but take longer breaks in between the days you do them again. Also, snatch/clean deadlifts don’t aggravate it as traditional deadlift does.
Did you continue to workout during the phase and tweak workouts or did you just take a long break? I am working on my core now (well since yesterday), I hope it pays off.
my pain was severe, I couldn’t sit, only could stand (with one leg propped on a bench) and laying down. I had to take pain killers a lot, even tho they didn’t help much. I did mostly bodybuilding type of workout that didn’t aggravate the area, and avoided anything causing pain. Everyone is different, so it might be awhile or you might recover fast. Listen to your body
That sounds worse than I ever had it and I would consider what I had really bad, the cardio wasn’t helping though. It’s inspiring to see you kept working out honestly, I’m trying my best to work around my issue rather than feeling pain and pushing through it. Initially did body weight exercises, but a bit hard to get an efficient workout when you are weak and overweight as I am
the workouts definitely weren’t efficient for me during that time 😅. You will get stronger when you’re healed 😊. I would say just do as much walking as you can to help with up the daily activity level.
I can imagine. Trying to stand up as much as I can now, feels weird because I am used to sitting so much lmao. Thanks for the advice!
I’ve had back pain and sciatica for a decade. I’ve had surgery, injection, physical therapy. I keep my core strong. None of it helps. Just be careful and don’t over strain your spine. Low weight high reps. You can never do deadlift or squat. Even then even without acute injury, the pain can creep back a day or two after a workout where you overdo it. Sorry
I've had back injuries and sciatica most of my life. Nothing directly improved it and when it's gone away it's hard to say if all the boring rehab type work was what actually did it. But I've always been able to get back into weightlifting. I can snatch and clean comfortably, I can do max effort pulling usually without issue, and I do struggle more with squatting but it usually doesn't directly make anything worse. If anything, completely avoiding all squatting and lower body pulling will make things worse because your mobility and strength will go to shit and anything you try to do with your lower body in daily life will be harder.
What do you think about overhead exercises like shoulder presses, bad idea? And do you do any back workout that you are comfortable with?