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curve in spine

1

11th hour

Guest
This is about a deformity rather than injury but this seems like the best place on the forum to post.

I have scoliosis/curvature of the spine which gives me some hassles in my lower back - I feel weak on one side and often pull muscles on that side. In my limited experience at gyms when I share this with someone writing my program they seem to have responded by lowering starting weights and crossing out some things they were going to write into my program.

I've been dealing with this all my life and have come to realise that even others who have the same condition experience it differently depending on the angle and location. I appreciate that its hard even for the medical profession let-alone trainers in the fitness industry to really nail what's going to work for any one individual.

That said, I'm wondering if there's trainers here, or others with a curve in their spine, who can give advice on starting out again weight training. I'm thinking of starting by working on core muscles in general before doing anything that stresses the back. I've been watching youtube videos of deadlifts and don't think this is something my back could ever handle. I'm uncertain if I should be able to do such things in time or if its safest to steer clear forever.
 
Kyle does wait for his reply. Is it a developmental curvature (had it since you were little or has gotten worse as you got older) or one that has occurred due to postural reasons (over time due to work etc)?
 
before you consider any type of weight training,
Locate a medx centre in your area.

They specialize in this area.

I've had experience with using the equipment, their lumber machine is a beautiful thing.
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I have this also. 1 disc is very visable in an xray, where it is shown veering to one side, thats why our lower backs always seem to have knots and uncomfortable pains
 
Its a curve that I've always had that was diagnosed at 12 and treated with a back brace until I stopped growing - I think at 16 years. It stabilised at a 42 degree angle and recent x-rays don't indicate any change. It sounds bad (and looks bad in the x-rays though not visible to look at me) but I've been able to do pretty much anything anyone else can do just being careful with lifting. I also get pain doing sit ups as a slight twist in my spine has my left lower back and hip sitting off the floor.

Looking forward to Kyle's reply...
 
All curvatures provided different problems, you really want an expert opinion with all the information in front of them. Look for either an exercise physiologist or physio who have experience in scoliosis and get there opinion on what will be dangerous or not. From there work out exercises you think you can do and then go back to them and discuss it fully. There should be a lot of exercises you can do that do not put your spine in danger, don't expect to squat though :(. Dumbbell Lunges are a good alternative though
Posted via Mobile Device
 
I have a scoliosis, too. See a sports physiotherapist. Seriously. They can give you exercises to redress to muscle imbalances.

Provided the physio gives you the say-so, there should be no obstacle to your doing normal gym exercises. The exercises we need to do are the same as anyone else - basic compound movements like squat and deadlift.

Now, in these movements everyone must be careful of their posture. For example, below are two guys deadlifting, one is rounding his back, one has a firm extended back.

hunched-over-deadlifts.jpg
deadlift11.jpg


So everyone must be conscious of their posture of their spine front-back, the difference with us is that we must do it right-left as well. For most people the right-left straightness is natural and instinctive, we have to be conscious of it.

Everyone will have certain muscle weaknesses and strengths, and moves in a way to not use the weak muscles and use the stronger ones - the body doesn't know muscles, it only knows movement, so when you tell it to do a movement, it gets that movement happening any way it can.

For example, most people have their work and leisure time sitting on their bums, so their glutes (bum muscles) and hamstrings (back of thigh) are weak, but their lower back muscles are relatively strong. So when they come to squat or deadlift, they round their back, letting them minimise the use of glutes/hams and maximise the use of muscles of the lower back.

People like you or I will lean to the stronger side, letting the weight compress our spines more into their deformity.

Again: everyone has stronger and weak muscles. So there is nothing exotic or magical about having stronger and weaker muscles due to a scoliosis. It just means a different approach. But see a sports physio, they help a lot.

What's your real first name, 11th hour, and where are you in this wide brown land of ours?
 
I really appreciate your explanation. A lot of health professionals in various fields HAVE reacted like this was some exotic condition that scared them although to me, having grown up with it, its always just been a matter of finding MY way to do certain things.

When you say:

So everyone must be conscious of their posture of their spine front-back, the difference with us is that we must do it right-left as well. For most people the right-left straightness is natural and instinctive, we have to be conscious of it.

Do you mean this in the way that we would have to be conscious of how we hold our hips and shoulders and that we are not allowing the weights to pull us to one side?

I must admit I'm a little confused too on the issue of deadlifts - when you do workplace health and safety training on lifting they want you to start with your spine as close to vertical as possible and maintain the same spinal position whilst lifting with the legs. With deadlifts it appears you're aiming to change the spinal position as you lift - but isn't this what H&S trainers always say strains the back and can cause crushed vertebrae etc? I think what I'm picking up from your post is that spinal position isn't the biggest issue because its the muscles that are creating the movement and they need to guide and support the spine through a safe range???
 
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A lot of health professionals in various fields HAVE reacted like this was some exotic condition that scared them
Health professionals are easily scared. Remember that most of the people they meet are in pain or discomfort, pain or discomfort which all too often only gets worse over the years, and which may kill them. Health professionals don't see you when your condition improves - you get better, you don't go back - they only see you when you're getting worse.

So many of them get a frightened and negative view of the world. Our experiences shape our attitudes.

Again, almost everyone has some muscle imbalances caused by their affected posture, work, lifestyle, sports, etc.

Look around you on the street or at the office, you'll see people with their head and shoulders forwards - that's excessive kyphosis (forward curve of upper back and neck), which means the muscles of the upper back are long and weak, and those of the chest and shoulders are short and tight.

Or look at many young women with boobs, belly and butt sticking out - they have an excessive lordosis (backward curve of lower back) - giving them long and weak gluteal, hamstring and abdominal muscles, and short and tight hip flexors and quads.

Wander down to the river and look at a rowing team sometime, look at their backs when they're standing around - one side is stronger than the other, this pulls their spine to one side.

Muscle imbalances are thus nothing unusual. What's different is that with most people, their lifestyle causes the imbalance, so exercise can correct it almost 100% - with scoliosis, it's the fundamental structure of the spine. So the imbalance can be lessened but it can never be zero. People can change their lifestyles; we cannot change our spines.
Do you mean this in the way that we would have to be conscious of how we hold our hips and shoulders and that we are not allowing the weights to pull us to one side?
Yes. Everyone needs a nice straight back when lifting. But as I said, for people without scoliosis, being straight in the left-right dimensions comes naturally. For scoliosis, the person must concentrate on it.

However, everyone must concentrate on being straight forward-back. So it just means that the scoliosis person has two dimensions to think about instead of one. Which is hard, but not impossible.

I must admit I'm a little confused too on the issue of deadlifts - when you do workplace health and safety training on lifting they want you to start with your spine as close to vertical as possible and maintain the same spinal position whilst lifting with the legs.
Different situations. At work, they want to keep everyone safe. How can they do that when some people are strong, some weak? Well... they have to assume everyone is weak. Their "safe lifting" guidelines are not written for athletic young people, they're written for the overweight 50 year old guy with three herniated discs in his back. They're not trying to make you strong, they're just trying to keep you alive for this one lift.

Since most people have weak backs, the safest thing for them to do is lift using their legs. Safety first.

The deadlifting guidelines, on the other hand, are designed to get you to do a lift and make you stronger. You don't make your back stronger by using your legs instead.

That said, the OHS lifting guidelines if properly taught are not so different. You don't want to be bending your spine in deadlifts, either. More on that below.

With deadlifts it appears you're aiming to change the spinal position as you lift - but isn't this what H&S trainers always say strains the back and can cause crushed vertebrae etc?
Assuming a healthy but not strong back, what causes damage is repeated lifts with rounding. The vertebrae are designed to fit together like so =, when the back rounds, they end up like so >. Now, if all you're doing is picking up your car keys that doesn't matter. Pick up 100kg and it's rather different.

I think what I'm picking up from your post is that spinal position isn't the biggest issue because its the muscles that are creating the movement and they need to guide and support the spine through a safe range???
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

The biggest issue is good posture. The spine has a series of natural curves to it,
skeletal-spine-picture.jpg


and our aim should be that when lifting we stay as close as possible to those natural curves. Look again at the good deadlift,

deadlift11.jpg


notice for example the curve in his lower back. He has it when standing, he has it when picking up the weight. It's not the spine that's bending up and down as he lifts the weight, the spine is held rigid - it's the hips that are bending.

Sitting there now, if you want to lean in close to the screen, there are two ways to do it. You can bend your neck and upper back forward - ie, bend your spine - or you can pivot your hips while keeping your spine straight. The second makes you look a bit demented, so we usually choose the first.

Same deal with lifting heavy stuff off the ground. We can bend our spine, or bend at the hips. Bending at the hips while keeping the spine rigid is the way to go.

Probably the best way to explain it to you is to always imagine that you still have that brace on keeping your spine straight.

Again, I recommend a sports physiotherapist to you. After that, once you begin a course of physical training, get someone experienced (someone you trust, and/or a paid trainer or coach) to show you the lifts. This stuff is much, much clearer when we can move our bodies around as we speak. Five minutes in person could be better than five weeks online.

Best of luck, Tina.
 
Thanks for taking the time to explain all of this. Things are clicking for me.

I'm still learning about my condition - I just found out in the last few months that aside from the sideways curve and the slight twist I have my lower spine is also flatter/not as curved as it should be. I'm starting to understand why at times like participating in a coaching clinic a couple of years ago the trainer was paying all this attention to me for example telling me to stick my butt out further doing squats but it seemed impossible - he was probably trying to establish the "normal" curve in my spine which I don't have.

I think maybe the way forward for me is to get to a physiotherapist for an assessment and to work on or get the all clear to do weight training. Then maybe a few sessions with a personal trainer to establish good technique could help. (I have family members who could help with showing proper technique but think maybe a qualified trainer would be more confident and comfortable working with me.) I'm thinking showing x-rays to a trainer might help so they can see exactly what they're working with. In hindsight this info might have helped others working with me in the past (if it didn't scare them).
 
i have heard alot about the kettlebell swing being very good for the back. perhaps you should look into mastering that exercise.

i too had/have(not sure if i still got it) from bowling in cricket which does not stop me from training. this may be bad advice but i think sometimes you just got try things, somethings may hurt, dont do it again. somethings may not.
of course be safe, but try not to act like you live in a bubble
 
I think you're on the right track. Unless your condition is very severe, a physio will almost certainly give you the go ahead for conventional gym exercises - they'll just add in some physio exercises to it and tell you to take it slow and steady. But I mean, when did a medical professional ever tell anyone to leap into something and crack along at top pace? :D

Yes, our condition will definitely affect things like squats. A good trainer will be aware of your condition - the health screen at the start should pick it up if the client is aware of it, and the postural assessment should pick it up if the client's not aware of it - and will take it into account.

By "take it into account" I mean simply that everyone has to have the straightest possible posture during lifts. It's simply that some people's posture will be less straight than others'. You need to adopt your best possible posture. The trainer needs to know what your best possible posture is.

Don't show a trainer x-rays, PTs are not medical professionals and not trained to read x-rays. Exercise physiologists might have an idea, ordinary PTs not. However, a good PT will have some awareness of postural issues, so if you tell them you've a scoliosis and they watch you squat and so on, they'll have a good enough understanding - remember, all they have to do is ensure you have your best possible posture.

A good trainer won't be scared. In fact, it's a pleasant challenge. I mean, give me some 18 year old with 5 yers of sports behind them and perfectly healthy with great posture and a good appetite, I can have them squatting 100kg and deadlifting 140kg in no time, that's no challenge. But give me someone who was always picked last for the school sports teams, has been sedentary for years, has a bad back, is asthmatic with high blood pressure, overweight - if I get them squatting even 60kg and able to walk up stairs without sweating, well that's an achievement.
 
i have heard alot about the kettlebell swing being very good for the back. perhaps you should look into mastering that exercise.

i too had/have(not sure if i still got it) from bowling in cricket which does not stop me from training. this may be bad advice but i think sometimes you just got try things, somethings may hurt, dont do it again. somethings may not.
of course be safe, but try not to act like you live in a bubble

The kettlebell bootstrapper squat is an excellent excercise.


youtube, kettlebell bootstrapper squat

Going barefoot. riseing slowly, feeling the weight on the feet (not all on the toes, more on the heels than the toes), focusing on good position and balance. It would be normal for the first try to be a bit tenative and awkward. Go slow and correct as you rise.

hips shouldn't rise faster than the kettlebell.
have someone hold a broomstick vertical right behind your butt in the bottom position, you'll feel it if you let the hip start to travel backward into a good morning. If that starts to happen, nip it in the bud, stop, sink back into the squat and try again.


For PT's...
Take plenty of breaks because sitting in the squat position taking coaching cues is going to be fatiguing, and that fatigue will encourage the problem, good morning-ing out of the bottom.

Once this is mastered, your next step is the goblet squat.
 
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agreed. Dan John uses those in his warm ups. i use those and the goblet squat in my warm up for squats.

For many, mastering the goblet squat is as far as they need to go.
 
Haz - I hear ya when you say sometimes you just have to try things. I was going to jump right in but stopped and thought about it for a moment... My back has been going backwards in the last few years - more pain, more feeling generally weak, more difficulty with things like pushing a mower uphill. I definitely want to jump in and use it before I lose it altogether but don't want to hinder my progress with injuries... I'm sure it'll all go fine though once I know what I'm doing.

The whole kettlebell concept is new to me - first time I heard about kettlebells was when I found this forum. Would definitely be open to trying out kettlebell exercises after I've got set up and nailed the basics.

Kyle - I think my condition classifies as severe but because I've remained active I think my outlook to do strength training should be pretty good. I suspect a physio might recommend some targeted strengthening or to go easy on certain exercises to start with.

I wasn't sure on the x-ray thing but recently had a health professional (dealing with neck/jaw muscles) insisting if I didn't consciously hold one shoulder in the air so my neck would be perfectly perpendicular the muscle problems would persist. The whole thing seemed ridiculous to me - if I obeyed of course I was then going to have shoulder pain from fatigued muscles. I showed him the x-ray and actually saw the moment it clicked with him and he understood what he was dealing with.
 
Don't just jump in, no. Step one, physio. Step two, follow physio's advice. Step three, see a trainer or coach or experienced person and get them to show you basic compound exercises.

I just jumped in and strained my erector spinae muscles - the ones running along the spine - doing deadlifts. Basically, if I don't concentrate then my left side takes all the weight. 120-130kg isn't a big deal for deadlifts, but it is a big deal if you're only using half your back. Muscle strain, out for for 6-8 weeks. Not really brilliant. I mean, just trying some exercises, you are not going to die. But it's not going to help.

Remember the 7 Ps - proper preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance.

Yep, corrective exercises will be the go from the physio. They were for me.

x-rays are useful for health professionals, they are not useful for trainers and coaches.
 
My advice would be to not load anything on your back with severe scoliosis. work up to things using dumbbells and pulls off the floor and do exactly what Kyle said.
 
Kyle - thanks - you've been most helpful with all this. It's awesome to hear from someone who has dealt with muscle imbalances caused by a curve them-self as the discussion isn't just theoretical that way but also about experience.

Dave - you mean don't load the back at first, work up to it, then load the back when you're ready for it? I hope the physio will help me get ready for it, then a personal trainer can help me gradually transition into it.
 
ON your back, as in squats. You should be working out your ability with other exercises first and then talk to your physio or specialist as to when you can put in squats or anything with a load sitting on your back (think of a bar on top of shoulders).
 
All free weights held while standing or sitting, held by anything other than your legs, the force ultimately goes through your spine. A law of physics is that force always goes somewhere. For example, in a deadlift, the force goes through your hands, then shoulders, then... spine! and then hips, knees, feet.

Since the force always goes through your spine, you need to hold your spine in the position where it can best handle that force. That's the position of good posture.

Tina, my pleasure. Us deformed crippled mutants whose condition so alarms medical professionals need to work together :cool: so we can realise that it's not such a big deal after all. We have a problem, but the problem has solutions. It's simple but not easy - same as anyone trying to be healthy, fit and strong.

If you ever leave Brisvegas for civilised lands, you know where to come to train ;)
 
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