And not my legs. Now my back hurts.
What exactly happens to a person’s back when this happens? Is a vertebrae out of alignment? Is a muscle strained?
In my case it is strained muscles. The lower back basically on top of the pelvis. I had a horrible episode a few months ago that kept me in bed for a couple of days and uncomfortable for a few weeks.
I did the same thing exactly 5 years ago. My back has never been the same since.
Good luck.
No. That’s chiropractic woo-woo.
Why are the back muscles so weak? If I keep doing this, would they get stronger?
After this most recent problem I went to physical therapy. The therapist said that a big cause of these issue is a lack of flexibility and gave me numerous stretching exercises. The main one is your basic hamstring stretch. Also various twisting stretches for the back.
My orthopedist pointed out that lifting with legs is bad for your knees. His advice, “Don’t lift heavy things”
One thing I’ve read is that the human body is a modified quadruped body. Your back originally evolved to be mainly horizontal, and wasn’t used for lifting. When we started walking upright evolution had to make do with the structures it had, but it was limited by our origins.
This is true, and there’s also an issue of technique. The problem isn’t lifting with your back so much as it’s lifting with your back in a way that causes your lumbar spine to bend. Injuries are much more likely to happen if you do it that way than if you’re good about keeping your spine straight.
Yes, that’s technically true, but it really has little to do with evolution and everything to do with physics.
When your back is straight up and down, weight is transferred down the spine, through the pelvis, into the legs and so on. When this is a straight line, you can support tremendous forces (just look at Olympic weightlifting).
But when these things are off the vertical, physics says that there’s a horizontal vector and a vertical vector. The horizontal vector is plain old leverage: your arms and back multiply the force and there’s no much that can support that.
Strained muscle. Unfortunately a lot of our back muscles are right next to major nerves branching off the spine, and when the muscle cramps it presses on a nerve. Not fun. But even that’s better than actual spinal damage such as a slipped disc. If that had been the case, the OP wouldn’t have said “And now my back hurts”, they would have said “And now I’m in agony”.
Nothing much to add to the GQ answers already given, but I also hurt my back a few years ago (moving a router out from a rack…something I’d done hundreds of times), and it’s never been the same. Occasionally it will flare up for no apparent reason and hurt for a couple of days, then be ok again. Nothing to docs seem to be able to do, as I’ve been to several…just live with it I guess.
Good luck to the OP…hope you feel better soon.
-XT
Do yourself a favor and learn to lift with your legs. My back is screwed beyond belief, enough that I will never work again and I am on major painkillers for the rest of my life. Now granted, I had three surgeries and broke my back falling, but trust me you don’t want to mess up your back. Lifting heavy objects can “blow” a disc out and then you need surgery. If you get surgery the surgeons WILL screw it up and you will be left with life long pain. Take care of your back …
There is a lot of hoodoo advice out there about lifting and flexibility. Most of it is nonsense or ill-advised. People with super-flexible back muscles are actually more prone to back injury. The muscles that support the back should be fit, but not overly flexible, in order to do the job they are designed for.
Back scans and surgery: unless you’ve injured yourself in a fall or other accident, you most likely do NOT need to have an x-ray or MRI. And even less likely to require surgery. Doctors are far too eager to perform these procedures, but most of the time they are unnecessary and expensive.
Lifting with the legs: this old saw has become “fact” over the years, but in reality it’s the hips and shoulders that should be taking the strain, not the legs. As somebody pointed out above, lifting solely with your legs can blow out a knee. The proper method is to bend slightly at the waist, grasp the object, and basically slide it up your thighs, using your hips and shoulders to leverage it.
Bed rest and hefty pain killers for a back injury: this is the worst advice of all for a sprain or strain. While it hurts to do so, you should perform as much of your normal tasks as possible to strengthen the injured area. When at rest, use hot packs to relieve pain. Aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxin (Aleve generic) for inflammation relief.
Lastly, a bad sprain (as I just suffered back in November) can take months to heal completely. I’m just now getting to the point where I can do most of the things I did before I did something stupid.
Chefguy: lifelong back pain sufferer.
The back muscles are also under a tremendous amount of stress to begin with if you are overweight. A large mass of fat in the abdominal area strains the back, in an attempt to provide balance. That’s one reason why pregnant women often suffer from low back pain.
ETA: Also, twisting your trunk while lifting something heavy is KILLER. If you are going to pick up something heavy, keep your back straight and turn using your feet.
If you lift something heavy, twist your body, AND try to raise the load up over your head (like putting it on a high shelf), you are in SO much trouble.
~VOW