I battled for 2 years with a lower back injury. One of the symptoms was piercing sciatica—which is an irritated nerve causing pain from the lower back down the hamstring.
It got worse during my first year of full time work. I couldn’t go 30 minutes in a meeting without feeling an ache or pressure with my lumbar spine. I was restless and uncomfortable throughout the day.
I eventually saw a doctor who said, “You need to deadlift.”
I didn’t know what it was, nor was I much interested in death or lifting at the time, so I was skeptical.
The deadlift is where a loaded barbell, or similar weight, is lifted from the ground to the hips, and then placed back on the floor. It gets the “dead” from the weight being dead, or stationary, on the floor before the lift begins.
The exercise changed my life. After 3 months of deadlift training, all my lower back issues were gone. I felt foolish to have suffered for years when the cure was as easy as lifting a heavy weight 2 times per week.
The reason why the deadlift is such a great exercise is because it works the entire posterior chain: upper, middle and lower back, as well as the hip, core, quad, and hamstring muscles. As these muscle get stronger, our strength, stability, and posture all improve.
Another observation was that if I don’t deadlift for a few months, the lower back pain starts to return.
Unsurprisingly, the antidote is simple.
This post was a little longer than normal. But I thought it may help someone. Counterintuitively, lifting a heavy weight and putting your back under stress can be one way to help tackle long standing pain. It’s important though to get a trainer or someone who knows how to deadlift properly to help you nail the technique.