Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => Health & Fitness => Topic started by: Gandalf on 08 May, 2010, 10:56:15 am

Title: 'Bad' back again ouch.
Post by: Gandalf on 08 May, 2010, 10:56:15 am
Anyone else have this problem?  Yet again I find myself back on the hot baths and Ibuprofen rigmarole.  ::-)

This crops up from time to time and I'd love to know why, last time was probably about eighteen months ago.  It seems quite arbitary though, this time I just bent down to to the BT engineer hole in the pavement thing and it just  sort of 'went'.  If I had been humping paving slabs or something I could understand it.

Fortunately I've cottoned on that the best thing to do is fight it off and remain active, sitting around makes it worse.  The good news is riding the bike is unaffected, apart from having to be lifted off like a knight in shining armour.

Is it worth me trying to do some sort of training to strengthen the lower back?  I know that my mattress is knackered as well, which probably doesn't help.
Title: Re: 'Bad' back again ouch.
Post by: Chris S on 08 May, 2010, 11:18:52 am
You have my sympathy - I have had two major back episodes in my life.

A couple of things that worked for me:

A large board under the mattress - essentially turning your bed into a futon. Or get a futon.

Slying. This involves adopting a sitting position, but with your back on the floor and lower legs on the seat of the settee/chair (literally sitting, but lying - hence - slying). This is not recommended if (a) you have a friendly slobbery dog or (b) a draughty house.

Diclofenac or Volterol  if your insides can stand it. Thankfully, mine are OK with Volterol.
Title: Re: 'Bad' back again ouch.
Post by: plum on 08 May, 2010, 11:26:27 am
I was a frequent victim for years. Yes keep on moving will speed up the recovery.

Was caused simply by a sedentary lifestyle in my case, getting some exercise and losing some weight seems to have fixed me up.
Title: Re: 'Bad' back again ouch.
Post by: Manotea on 08 May, 2010, 11:34:12 am
I have occasional lower back problems, mostly caused by imbalance between lower back strength/flexibility and the rest of my body, so the emphasis is on taking it easy when resuming exercise after a fallow period. A bad episode sends me to my Chiropractor for a miracle cure. Not cheap (three visits at £45 a a pop) though a bargain compared to being immobilised for several weeks. A mild strain will sort itself out in a week.

Edit: Plum has it right. Earlier this year I crocked my back putting three laps into Richmond Park for the first time for a very long  time, which is why I switched to running for a while until I started to get a bit fitter. Running puts far less strain on the back then cycling, especially fixed where all the power goes through the lower back.
Title: Re: 'Bad' back again ouch.
Post by: De Sisti on 08 May, 2010, 02:01:10 pm
You have my sympathy -........Diclofenac or Volterol  if your insides can stand it. .

If you use an asthma inhaler and take Diclofenac it may well affect your breathing when
riding hard. I found out to my cost too late, on the Marmotte last year. I couldn't get the
pain killing injections in my lower back but was prescribed Diclofenac (a week before the event).

It wasn't until the beginning of the first climb on the Marmotte that I realised that something was wrong, when I couldn't keep up with the group I was riding with, even though my heart rate was only registering 135 bpm. Once it got to that level it felt as though someone was standing on my chest.
 
I had to ride the whole event very conservatively to keep my hr below 135. Consequently
I finished (inside the time limit) with a very slow time. On the positive side, I felt very fresh
when I finished because I didn't go into the red zone.