How to recover from back pain over the weekend

In a nutshell do the following:

Get Voltarol for treatment out of your local pharmacy
Apply heat either through a hot water bottle or deep heat patch depending on how much you want to get done that weekend
Roll out after breakfast before going into the shower and whenever pain gets notice able
Stretch when getting out of bed and into bed

If you do this the worst should be over when Monday hits. If not, consult a doctor. Always consult a doctor in case you are unsure whether you can use Voltarol or not and what exercises to do.

Voltarol

Voltarol was my go to ailment in my Judo days whenever I had muscle pain caused by too much stress and / or getting a kick against the area or someone falling on me in a unfortunate manner. When I want to recover from pain I usually apply this before I go to bed and directly after getting up on the weekend.

I leave it on when I am flouncing about in my pyjamas until breakfast is done and the shopping has to be gotten or other errands have to be made.

The good thing about Voltarol is that it will go into the tissue and help you to recover. I don't exactly know the medical mechanism for it to work, but it works for me. Always check whether you are allergic or if you have to use something different, because you are not allowed to use it for medical or professional reasons. Always consult a doctor before making choices for medication, even if it is over the counter, like Voltarol.

Deep heat patch

Deep heat

After your shower and if you want to get shit done during the weekend I recommend wearing one of these heat patches. They are not made for being worn during any sport competition, but they stick good for everyday tasks (I mentioned the shopping before) like hoovering the house, dusting or doing the dishes. Usually when on a weightlifting or powerlifting program the weekends will be off anyway, so this is not a point to worry about.

It does not work wonders, but helps to relief pain and makes the most affected area smooth for the stretching and rolling which you will do besides all the other actions I recommend.

Rolling

A foam roller should be in your arsenal to do the agile 8 routine anyway. On the weekend it can be used to also attack the deeper tissues and roll them out to prevent back pain. The more regular you do this the less likely back pain will occur. I have not been following my own advice on this and that is why I now have to suffer a bit.

So do not be like me and plan one day a week at least for proper “deep tissue” rolling on a rest day to prevent pulling muscles. Supple Leopard is a book that is recommended a lot to achieve this purpose on crossfit forums and in the powerlifting community. (The author appears on several youtube channels commenting on this). A routine that works for me to foam roll specifically for back pain is to roll the lower back centre, left and right. Do these separately so roll out the centre first then go on the sides and roll out both.

Stretching

While rolling will help you to loosen the muscle tissue where it is tight, stretching (especially static stretches) will help you to get the ligaments stretched which attach the muscles to the bones to prevent them from ripping.

Static stretches are stretches which you hold for more than 30 seconds. I personally get the best results if I hold a stretch for two minutes before I switch. This is pretty impractical on weekdays for a warm up if you are not a full time athlete as it takes a lot of time. Here I recommend dynamic stretches as done in the agile 8 warm up routine which is usually done in 10 minutes. On the weekends you can spent some quality time with your body. Maybe do half an hour to an hour of yoga in the morning instead of having a lie in.

To get rid of back pain I fund the following routine most beneficial:

Back Strecthes

Cost of treatment

The cost of this is roughly 30 – 40€ excluding the foam roller for the deep heat patches and the Voltarol. The Voltarol can be used for at least a month for the amount you get. I only got two deep heat patches for the lower back out of this, so in case that is to expensive for you and you are planning on staying in bed for the day anyway, maybe use a hot water bottle instead, which achieves the same.

Conclusion

This is just a quick fix for when the symptoms of lower back pain show which works (tried and tested). Do really take care to understand the underlying cause of the lower back pain which for a lifter is usually bad form on a particular lift or over exhaustion because you are too long on one particular program. Also overtraining as your tonnage exceeds your strength levels might be a cause. My structural fix will be to switch from conventional to sumo deadlifts for the next half year until I have finished my one year Jim Wendler project to see where this takes me and prevent further back pain.