Advice for Back Injury

[Pedmom]

Hi Catheites. I have been doing Cathe's workouts for about 5 weeks now and love them. Prior to that I had been doing exclusively Firm workouts for weights, for about a year.

Today I did Slow and Heavy Chest & Back for the first time, and absolutely loved it. I loved that I could feel my pecs for the first time ever! I used 12 pounds dumb bells.

1. My hands are KILLING me while doing chest presses and flys. Does anyone else have this? I am NOT squeezing the weights at all. I'm wondering if anyone uses weightlifting gloves, if they help much, and which brand/kind you use.

2. Deadlifts-does anyone else have trouble with these. I have been doing them in all my Cathe workouts, but today, using the 12 pound dumb bells, I really hurt my lower back. I sit here now with the lovely aroma of Icy Hot and a heating pad on my back. Not to mention the fear that I will have to rest for a few days. I tried to concentrate on keeping my shoulders back and am wondering if it's possible to have them back too far? Maybe this made my back arch? Or is it from an old injury I had to my lower back, and I should just skip the deadlifts altogether.

Thank you in advance for any comments and/or advice.
jill

 

[Gayle]

Hi Jill,

I also get the hand pain/ache thing when doing a lot of chest presses and flys. I have a pair of Valeo weight lifting gloves that help. They have a lot of padding in the palm of the hand.

Regarding the back pain, make sure you're keeping the weights close to your legs, and focus on lifting with the glutes and hamstrings as opposed to the back. I find that if I don't concentrate while doing deadlifts, that my back starts doing more of the work.

HTH

 

[FitnessGoddess]

I don't have hand pain but CANNOT do dead lifts no matter what I try. I've worked with 4 different personal trainers to make sure my form is absolutely impeccable. I always end up with low back pain for days after. In fact, one time I had such bad spasms that my body was contorted into an "S" for 2 weeks and I didn't lift weights for 3 months to be absolutely certain I had healed appropriately. Ever since that time I just skip that exercise on every single tape.

 

[jdoll]

Ditto to fitnessgoddess! i absolutely can't do them w/out pain, so i skip them on every workout now.

jes

 

[Pedmom]

Thanks for the input everyone. I think I will be skipping the deadlifts as well from now on. My back doesn't hurt as much today, but if I try to stand up straight it's more painful. I'm so mad wondering how many rest days this will force me to take.

I also think I will try some gel padded gloves for my hands. One thing I did figure out last night-I bought a "real" bench and weights for my son for Christmas. DBF last night said the 12 pound bells are just too big, and now I think he's right. I did two reps each of chest presses and flys with the regular barbell and bench weights, and the bar was much thinner and didn't hurt at all. (Thankfully my pain is only in my very low back so I could try this). Either I have to try gloves, or try to move all my other workouts down to the basement with the bench, elliptical and treadmill.