Living with back injury
My name is Tom Morrison and I have a back injury.
L4/L5 S1 disc protrusions with nerve impingement, I also train Olympic lifts 4 times a week and do heavy squats, deadlifts and use CrossFit for conditioning.
Two statements you rarely see in the same sentence, but it doesn’t come without some devotion to learning your body. And I mean that – YOUR body. I’ve spent years going backwards, from no athleticism to constant niggles, pains and injuries, to where I am at now. Awareness doesn’t come easily to most people; even advanced athletes still make mistakes and, yes, some responsibility comes down to a coach, but only the athlete truly knows how their body feels. You cannot just assume that everyone works the same way.
1. Don’t be scared to adapt your session
I fell out of love with strength programs after years of results – another two sentiments that don’t seem to go together. Yes, the intended gains were always received, but at what cost? The number of programmes I had to pause, rest from, stop completely or actually got hurt from was just not worth the reward
What you start to realise is that nobody is 100% on any given day, especially if training is not their full-time job. Failure to appreciate this is how you can over stress your body and run yourself into the ground.
I will still follow a plan, or programme, of what to do on a day to day basis, but especially with my injury history, my body dictates the session, not me. If my 5×5 session becomes 5×3 then so be it, did I still train? Did I still practice the skill I want to improve? Am I feeling stronger after the session? If the answer is yes then the session is not wasted. This works both ways? What if my 85% feels too easy some session? Do I rob myself of a good day just to stick to numbers? I think not.
Does this work for everyone? No. It is mainly an approach for people that have been training for years that can auto regulate without becoming lazy.
You do have to have an idea of what you are doing. That being said, there are a lot of newbies that can learn from this and avoid their enthusiasm and beginner gains becoming their downfall.
2. Have a daily assessment
With so many movement and mobility experts out there, deciding which exercises you should be doing, and which ones are a waste of your time, can be overwhelming. At my seminars one of the first things I teach is to test all of your joints every morning to see how they feel. Move your head left, right, up, down. Rotate your shoulders internally, externally. Do hip circles, lean side to side. See if you can touch your toes with straight legs, test your single leg balance and see how a lunge and squats feel that day
Your body changes daily, and the things you do from the day before influence how you will move the next day. It is really important to test each of these things and see can you notice any differences in either side.
You would be shocked to see how many people I work with that have one tight hip and one overly lose shoulder, without attention to correcting this, these patterns become worse, compensation begins to happen, and your lovely, even back squat starts going sideways.
If you know something feels funny before your gym session then you can either work on it throughout the day until your session to see if you can get it to go away, or change the session to suit how your body feels that day.
3. Add more stability training
No, I don’t mean start doing squats on the Swiss ball, but things like single leg deadlifts and suitcase carries really do challenge your core in a way that keeps you honest with the weights but also increase your awareness.
Your ability to resist being pulled out of a position is everything and you can’t practice that at maximal loads all the time (which I used to do). The more core stability you have the more access to strength you are going to have.
Purely from implementing exercises like this I am able to maintain my numbers with a lot less effort and still hit a personal best when the notion takes me.
4. Save testing for comps &
good sessions with friends
There is nothing I hate more than meeting up with a friend and asking what they want to do today and them replying with some bullshit excuse that they can’t train today because they are in the middle of a program. Gains are made together, if you have a chance to train with someone around your level and get your face screamed at THAT should be your priority, not the lone wolf super-secret squirrel program.
The Number 1 secret for gains is your environment and the atmosphere of where you are training.
5. Know you are not weak
If you do happen to have a reoccurring, chronic injury… basically… tough. That’s just the way it is. You need to have systems in place for when you do have a flare up so that you don’t have to take a single day off training. Adapting to the situation you are presented with is the key. Knowing that a flare up does go away, and knowing which exercises work best for you personally is essential. Personally, for me I have never been stronger than now because of the heightened awareness I have as a result of my back injury: I play with weights I used to struggle with and everything feels easier.
Final Thoughts
About the author
Tom Morrison is a Martial artist, British Weightlifting coach and CrossFit trainer/competitor. His focus is giving athletes the required mobility to be able to perform at their best without injury. His simplistic way of teaching and writing have made him sought after by many great coaches, athletes and trainers in the industry. Tom puts common sense at the forefront of your training.
You can learn more about Tom at
Photo Credit
Featured photo – Frozen In Time Photography