Posted in Podcast
Lower back pain and the never lift 20 pounds again advice
Episode 262
35 Minutes – Aug 10, 2022
Chapters
Questions this episode answers
- Will I ever be able to lift more than 20 pounds again with back pain?
- Almost certainly. At Performance Place I'd guess easily 99% of the people we see get back to it with the right help, including people with fusions.
- Why does lifting hurt my lower back?
- Usually because of how you're lifting. Your back is doing most of the work, so we shift that effort to your hips and legs.
- Is deadlifting bad for lower back pain?
- Not everyone needs to deadlift, but most people with back pain should learn a hip hinge. A deadlift is no different from picking up a wheelbarrow; it doesn't mean heavy weight.
- How should I pick something up off the floor with back pain?
- Don't bend forward from your back. Take a knee or a lunge and keep your back straight, using your hips and legs.
- Can I learn to lift properly from a video?
- You can get the basics. But it's a skill, and a coach watching you can give instant feedback, one cue at a time, so you don't compensate with your back.
Why "never lift 20 pounds again" is mostly wrong
It's nearly complete nonsense. Not 100%. There are always extraordinary cases. But at Performance Place, I'd guess easily 99% of the people we see will be physically capable of lifting 20 pounds again with the right help.
That includes people carried in by their spouse. People with rods, pins and fusions.
Here's the problem. You can't avoid 20 pounds. My dog is 40 pounds and I lift her out of the car every day. Laundry baskets, dog food, groceries, a kid. Think back to the heaviest thing you picked up this week. Go weigh it. You'll be surprised. And it probably didn't even bother you.
A friend who works in urgent care told me why they say "don't do it." They figure people will do about half of what they're told. Fair enough. But the advice is too general. Make it specific. Ask: Can I lift my dog? A 10 pound kettlebell? What about in a week? What if I'm not in pain? What if a coach is watching?
When my knee hurt to squat, my doctor said "don't squat." I told him I was going to squat anyway, so how deep is too deep? His answer: not past parallel. That I could use.
Why lifting hurts right now
Probably because of how you're lifting. The area that hurts is doing most of the heavy lifting. So we shift the effort somewhere else: your hips and legs.
It's rarely the pencil on the floor. It's the accumulation of a lot of movements done with your back.
Once you're off the floor and moving, even if getting out of a chair or putting on shoes is hard, that's a perfect time to start practicing with a 20, 30 or even 40 pound kettlebell, a dumbbell or a hex bar. Not to get big. To rehearse what your day asks of you. Take a knee or a lunge to pick things up. Keep your back straight. In my experience, coaching someone to lift while sparing the spine can help more than any deep tissue massage for acute and subacute low back pain or sciatica.
And not everyone's pain is the same. Some people have flexion intolerant sciatica, where bending forward triggers it. Others hurt bending backward. Your care should be specific to you.
The label becomes the problem
Say you're told at 30 you have a bad back and stop lifting. By 40, your legs are weak. Back pain often comes back. Now you can't lunge down to get that object off the floor, so your spine takes on even more work.
That's a self-perpetuating cycle. Weaker legs. Lazier hips. A spine working overtime.
I once met a man with a hereditary condition that was supposed to make him weaker over his life, like his family. Someone told him: if you're going to get weak, why not get strong instead? A year later he flexed his biceps for me. He had muscles for the first time. His family was declining. He wasn't.
If you've been labeled with degenerative disc disease or arthritis, do something about it. Don't let the diagnosis become you.
A deadlift is just picking up a wheelbarrow
People hear "deadlift" and picture 300 pounds in a powerlifting meet. That's the sport. A deadlift is a hip hinge, and stepping between a wheelbarrow and picking it up is the same thing.
Not everyone needs to deadlift. But almost everyone with back pain should learn a hip hinge, because people with back pain tend to hinge at the spine instead.
It's a skill, though. I worked virtually with a man on his hamstring. He watched the video and did deadlifts with a 15 pound bag. Three weeks later his back was stiff and "wouldn't turn off." We spent about 20 to 25 minutes coaching it with precursor exercises. No back pain by the end. Some of my cues didn't work. That's normal.
If you're thinking about flat back, hip extension, foot width and eyes up all at once, it'll be hard. We give you one thing. Do it well, then we add the next. You don't move to algebra two until you've retained algebra one. I hired a coach myself when I had back pain lifting things. I was scared of hurting myself again. That's common.
How much should you lift? Enough for the life you want. Ask yourself: if you woke up tomorrow with no pain, what would you do? A hiker might need around 100 pounds off the ground. A recreational ball player like me, maybe around 200. Train far past what you use and you'll lose it anyway. Find the Goldilocks zone.
Often, recurring pain isn't your joints getting worse. You're just physically unprepared.
Key takeaways
- "Never lift 20 pounds again" is too general; ask for specific limits and timelines.
- Lifting hurts now mostly because your back is doing work your hips and legs should share.
- Avoiding load weakens your legs and hips and puts more work on your spine.
- A deadlift is a hip hinge, like lifting a wheelbarrow, not a powerlifting event.
- Coaching one cue at a time makes the hip hinge stick faster than a video alone.
- Set your lifting target by the activities you want back.
At a glance
- Conditions and injuries
- Acute and subacute low back pain
- Sciatica
- Degenerative disc disease
- Spinal osteoarthritis
- Recurring back pain
- Anatomy involved
- Lumbar spine
- Hips
- Legs
- Hamstring
- Symptoms described
- Pain lifting objects off the floor
- Pain bending forward
- Pain getting out of bed or a chair
- Back stiffness during deadlifts
- Treatments and exercises
- Hip hinge training
- Coached deadlift with light load
- Kneeling or lunging to lift
- Kettlebell and hex bar lifting practice
- Goal-based strength targets
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically (whisper.cpp large-v3-turbo) and may contain errors.
Before we start the show clinicians, I want to invite you to take advantage of the premium version of the podcast that we have specifically for you. It was created for you. This podcast you're going to hear today is lay public friendly and it's intended to be so all of the stuff that you wish we would have covered more of like, Hmm, I wonder what the underlying biomechanics are of that. What's the clinical reasoning process? What positive orthopedics tests are there? I wish they would do more case presentations on X, Y, and Z. We're covering all of that in the premium version. And we have been for the past two years. So take advantage of it, scroll all the way down, click on it and listen to it. It releases every Monday for about 15 minutes. You're going to love it. See you guys in the show. Here we go.
You're listening to the restoring human movement podcast where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey everyone. It's your host, Sebastian with the restoring human movement podcast. Thanks for joining the movement movement. This is your first time the show. Welcome. You've missed a lot of episodes and you may want to go back and figure out what do I need to hear that is relevant? If you're listening to this one today, it's probably because you have lower back pain or sciatica or something around the buttocks area that's bothering you for a long time. And you've had a lot of opinions. And that's why this one's called, you should never lift 20 pounds ever again.
Well, maybe, probably not. Anyways, the ones you should probably go back to are about, I want to say about three, four months ago, we did a whole series on lower back pain and sciatica that could be pretty helpful to you. So please listen to those serially. Now, the reason why the suggestion of not being able to, or not recommending to never lift 20 pounds ever again is complete BS is because in most cases it's unavoidable. And I do say complete BS, but I'm going to, I'm going to say nearly complete BS is because most people in some fashion will have to navigate 20 pounds again. Obviously there's extraordinary circumstances where you may not be able to do that ever again, but I'd say if I were to guesstimate with at least the people that we see at performance place, I'd say easily 99% of the people that we see are going to be physically capable, capable again. If we help them along the way, we've seen people who have been completely like they come in and they're being carried almost by their spouse and they lay on the floor and they're in there for over an hour and a half.
And we're, we don't get off the floor at that point. We've had people who have had rods and pins and fusions and, and, and all those things. And I'd venture to say that all of these people will and should be able to lift 20 pounds again. And I'm, I'm using a very arbitrary number, 20 pounds, because that's something that a lot of people are told. Um, and it's, it's a very disabling thing. Uh, let me start with the reason possibly why these things may hurt. Um, and we can, well, actually let me lay out a little foundation of what we're going to cover today. Uh, why it's BS or I'm going to say in most cases, cause there's always circumstances. There's never a hundred percent, uh, why it may hurt you to actually pick up 20 pounds. Uh, what can you do about it? Like basically what can you do to get it back? Uh, why avoidance is a problem. Uh, what you will actually lose by not lifting 20 pounds ever again.
And the activities, uh, that tend to require you to lift 20 pounds. Now, the first thing again, I'll cover is most of it's just hogwash. And, and, um, uh, if you really drill down, most people who have given that suggestion, it's mainly because they don't want you to lift it right now. Hopefully they never said ever again, because that would make it a little bit more muddy to talk about this. But, uh, I have a friend who works in a, he works in an urgent care and he, I asked him one time, I said, how come you tell people to just not do that? Like if it hurts your back, don't run. And he's like, well, uh, that's a good question. Like I, I believe that most of the time when we make that suggestion, people are going to do half of that.
And so we're guesstimating, or at least he is guesstimating that if he says, don't do it, then they're going to do part of it. Uh, kind of the, uh, it's the T the teenager thing, if you will, you know, they'll, they'll kind of do the things a little bit that you told them not to do. And I think that's pretty fair because, uh, pain, a lot of times like back pain and sciatica and piriformis and hamstring and all these things, uh, will tend to, um, if it's a big problem, uh, your pain will tell you to stop. Um, I had someone recently that came in and we worked with them at performance place. Uh, it was for sciatica. It was for right sided leg pain. Uh, they had lower back pain as well.
And I think they had a very good question. They said, uh, you know, in the middle of the night, if I'm, cause it's really painful to get out of bed. Um, should I get out of bed and start walking or is like, should I hold it basically? And I'm like, well, I don't think by you stepping down and taking a few steps, you're going to all of a sudden rip your nerve and happen to be paralyzed. Uh, fact of the matter is you're going to, your body's going to take the path of least resistance like water and just crumple on the ground. You'll crawl to the bathroom, crawl yourself up to the toilet, sit down, go pee and crawl yourself back to bed, but you won't necessarily create a lot of damage by doing so.
So it's a suggestion that is super general and it needs, needs to be more specific. All right. The 20 pounds, not lifting it ever again is so, so general and it needs to be more specific. Um, I remember one time I was having a knee pain and I had the knee injected and it hurt to squat down. Um, and so I went into, uh, my doctor and he said, um, uh, just don't squat. And I, and I was just very blunt with him. And I said, well, I'm going to squat, I'll be honest with you. So you might as well tell me how deep is too deep because it didn't hurt to squat the whole, uh, the whole way. It hurts squat the deepest part.
And he said, not past parallel. And I said, that's completely fair. Uh, so if someone's giving you these suggestions of not to do anything or to not to lift 20 pounds, say, well, um, can I lift my dog? Uh, can I lift a 10 pound kettlebell? Can I lift a 19 pound kettlebell? Can I not do this now? Or can I, uh, what about in a week? What if I'm not in pain? Is it okay to do that? What if I do it under supervision via a trainer or physical therapist, uh, a sports chiropractor? Are these okay to do? Uh, a lot of times narrowing things down is very helpful because it's more specific to what's going on with you.
And that's really what we need to do is we need to make, uh, care and suggestions specific because your unique reason why you're having something like lower back pain and sciatica is very different than somebody else. Uh, although a lot of times people will blend into a certain cause, uh, in certain mechanics, but the way you're having back pain or sciatica is very different than how I may. Um, we did a video a while back on YouTube. Uh, it was one of our first sciatica videos where we gave three things that you should not do with sciatica ever. And then we said sometimes, and the fact of the matter is a lot of times people will have what we call flexion intolerant sciatica, like bending forward creates sciatica.
Other times people have sciatica or a leg pain when they bend backwards. And so when we said, you know, maybe don't do squats again, well, we said, well, maybe this may bother you, but it may not bother you. And there was a lot of confusion about it. And so we made two other videos to clarify about the two different most common types of sciatica. But so when I say sciatica and low back pain, generally have, um, they can have different mechanisms and different with everybody. That's good. That's kind of what I'm talking about. The reason why lifting 20 pounds may hurt you right now is because probably the way you're lifting it.
Uh, we've all seen somebody who is lifting something with their back. Uh, I just went over to my buddy's house just recently, uh, and he was moving an engine and transmission. He was leaning over and I just joked and I said, use more of your back. He's like, I'm trying. I said, use more, you know, he's not having any back pain. So I'm just joking with him, but if he was having back pain, we had to shift that effort to somewhere else. And what I mean by that is using some other region of the body to do a lot of lifting. Cause right now the area that hurts you is doing most of the heavy lifting and it hurts and it hurts more to do so.
And so by navigating something like a 20 pound weight again can be helpful if you're taught how to do so appropriately for the situation you're in now. Uh, and I know that's super general, the way to set it right there, but I do mean it like that. The reason why I didn't correct my buddy today and saying you have to lift with your hips is because, um, he wasn't in pain. Uh, he really wasn't, he was kind of repositioning it. He wasn't really lifting the transmission and engine, but he was kind of moving on to a dolly or a caster. And so, uh, the amount of load didn't really bother his back. So it's okay at the moment.
Um, I'm going to get some lash back about that. Like, well, you should always lift with your legs. Uh, I tend to think that it's more dependent upon the task and the weight. Meaning you don't have to use your hips to lift a pencil. I know that a pencil on the ground or a straw on the ground is what makes people feel like they're having back pain sometimes in an instant, but it's not the pencil. It's not the, Hey, it's accumulation of a lot of movements that you've done by using your back. So one really easy way to make it so the area doesn't hurt. So what you can do about it is be taught how to not lift with your back for certain tasks that you're going to do throughout the day.
Uh, like laundry. If you have a laundry basket, one of those low ones, uh, that may be something that's at some point going to have so much laundry in it might be 10 pounds. I think it depends if you're wearing thick clothes or not. But, um, a lot of times I take the laundry and I put the laundry in it and then I put the detergent in it too, which is a big old brick of detergent and you take it to the, to the, um, laundry room. So you need to be able to navigate things that weigh something, but you need to be able to do it in a way that doesn't bother or trigger your symptoms. Okay. There's no reason why you need to be avoiding doing laundry.
If you have a low or mid grade version of low back pain or sciatica, you don't need to be avoiding things in life and being scared of laundry basket. There's other ways you can do it. And so by having someone coach you through exercises and coaching you how to use your hips and how to lift it more appropriately, uh, can be really, really helpful. Um, I know that in warehouses and so on, people get hurt with lifting too, and they wear the back braces and there's preventative measures for it. Um, but I tend to think that one of the best ways to teach someone to use their legs is to think of the gym workout that requires them to use their legs, but use that not as a way to get strong necessarily, not as a way to get big and buff, but as in a way to simulate what you're going to be doing throughout the day that may create your back pain.
And this is actually very valuable to do when people first start having back pain. Like if you were stuck on the floor and you can barely move, maybe this is a little bit too soon, but once you start getting moving around and you're holding your back and it's hard to walk and get up out of a chair, put your shoes on, um, wash your feet. Like these are, this is a perfect time to start using something like a 20 pound, 30 pound, even 40 pound kettlebell, a 40 pound dumbbell, or even something like maybe a hex bar. If your, uh, therapist office has one, these are really, really appropriate to use now.
It's crazy how many times I see people just completely avoid these types of movements because they're fearful that they're going to hurt themselves. Granted, I totally understand why, uh, the, the pain aspect of it hurts. I don't want to do it. But if you really use your hips and legs to do so, you'll feel fine and you'll feel liberated. Let me give you an example. So if I was going to pick something off the ground and, and I know I, I, we did a video recently on this and we coach people into don't bend forward to pick up the thing off the ground. When you have back pain, take a knee or a lunge.
And so, um, keep your back straight basically in so many words. And so somebody, there's been a few people coming. They're like, what a stupid video. People who have back pain move like this already. We're already doing that. Why would we need a video for it? Right. So some people, when they have really acute pain, they're correct. Their back stiffens up and there's almost no way to bend forward because it hurts so bad. Other people aren't really super triggered by it. It's just an accumulation of it throughout the day. And by the end of the day or in the morning, it creates the problem. And so in these scenarios where pain is not so severe, where the person does a different movement pattern or different way of picking up an object off the floor, a lot of times coaching them in how to do so and spare their spine while at men's is a really, really easy and super valuable therapeutic method to use.
It actually can be more helpful than any deep tissue massage you may get with acute and subacute low back pain or even sciatica. So we covered why is it BS, or at least in a lot of cases, what is it, what can, why does it hurt to do, to bend forward? And what can you do about it? Before we go on to the next parts, I always want to cover also to the idea of, um, labeling yourself or having someone label you with a condition. I'm only bringing this up because, um, I've seen it so many times and it's, it's so sad to see, um, someone's been told they have a bad back or someone's been told that they can't lift 20 pounds again.
And guess what happens? Well, let's just say the 30 years old don't lift anything ever again. And what happens when they're 40, their legs are weak. And so if your legs are weak and you have back pain and you probably will, a lot of people have reoccurring back pain. It's common happens over the years. If you have low back pain and your legs are weak now, how are you going to get that object off the floor? You can't lunge down anymore because you're weaker. So now your legs and hips are weaker because you haven't been using them really that much to lift objects. And now your spine takes on more workload.
So what's going on? It's almost like, um, it's like labeling somebody with a disease, like saying, you know what, you're just going to get weaker over the course of your life. So you might as well not even try. I feel like people who have been labeled degenerative disc disease have this feeling because they're like, well, I'm going to, you know, I can't even say it. It's just so evil. I'm going to degenerate anyways. So why would I bother? This is what my expectations are. Uh, I actually met, I met somebody one time. It was a, it was an interesting, uh, scenario. Uh, he had a condition that actually his, uh, he there, uh, theoretically would get weaker and become more disabled over his lifetime and his family had the similar thing going on.
Like it was a congenital thing, like hereditary, like other people in his family had it. And so at one point he was told, well, if you're going to get weak, why not just get strong instead? Just try. And so he went to the gym and over the course of the year, he actually, uh, I remember he came in and he talked to me about it. He's like, look at my muscles. Like he flexed his biceps. He said, I've never had muscles before. And he said, I'm getting stronger and actually have muscles now when I didn't have before. And people in my family are actually getting weaker and what they projected for us to happen of getting weaker and become more disabled is happening to them, but it's not happening to me.
And I thought, man, that's so empowering. You know, like, like if you're labeled with degenerative disc disease or arthritis, why don't you do something about it? You know, do something about it. Don't let the diagnosis become you because if you don't do anything anymore, you're going to probably have some problems, right? Even people who have been diagnosed with spinal arthritis and so on. Uh, if you look up osteoarthritis on the internet and just some basic, uh, websites, what do you do about it? What are some treatments? It's movement. It's stretching. It's strengthening. You stay at a certain ranges that are provoking.
Just as I mentioned before, these people have a physical block of their, of certain joints. Like you can't go further because the bone has grown up a little bit more and it's obstructing, but they're recommended to move and stretch and strengthen. Why not do it as preventative? You know, but I feel like when people have, don't have that necessarily, they have more acute low back pain. They just hold, Oh, just don't do anything. Just don't lift 20 pounds ever again. Just don't squat ever again. Just don't deadlift ever again. It's, it's all bad. It's all bad for you. I don't know how many times I've seen, I feel like it's going to pop up every year now.
Um, you know, some clinic in Boston or wherever, like they, they say the five exercises you should never do with back pain and deadlifting is on there. It's just, it's, it's so atrocious, um, deadlifting, although we can say it's the, it, maybe it's the devil with some people, by the way, I should say that not everybody needs to deadlift to feel better or to feel physically able from their low back pain, but a hip hinge, they probably should. A hip hinge is an exercise, a category of exercises that requires the hip to work. It's the hip hinge. People who have back pain tend to have a spinal hinge when they pick up objects.
So not teaching people to use their hips as a hinge to lift objects is actually, in my opinion, creating a positive feedback loop. It's creating a self-perpetuating cycle. So what you end up losing when you don't end up lifting 20 pounds again is you end up creating a positive feedback loop. Your legs get weaker. Your hips get quote, let's say just lazier. And then your spine tends to work a little bit more crazy. Right? And so there's all this fear surrounding things like deadlifting and squatting. Uh, and they have a certain stereotype too. And I totally understand where people are coming from when they think deadlift and think, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to lift like 300 pounds.
Like it's, I don't, I'm, I'm like 150 pounds. Why would I, I don't want to do that. I don't even want to start. Right. So there's this thing that's, um, been going around where people are assuming deadlifting means a lot of weight and it's incorrect. What you may be thinking is you're thinking of sport, the sport of, of deadlifting, which comes in different formats, like, uh, a CrossFit, uh, powerlifting. Like there's various sports that have an event called a deadlift, which may get people to lift a lot of weights while deadlifting. But a deadlift is really no different than just picking up a wheelbarrow.
Like if you were shoveling dirt and stuff all day and you step between the wheelbarrow and you picked it up, that is a hip hinge slash deadlift. It's the same thing. And so many people think all the, all this weight is, uh, why, why I'm not going to bother doing it. I don't want to hurt myself. Consider how much weight that you may need to navigate throughout your day, which is kind of why I started this podcast anyways, with this topic of never lifting 20 pounds in a day. My dog is not a big dog. She's 40 pounds. I have to deadlift her up off the ground. Sometimes I squat her up off the ground, but I have to actually pick her up out of the car.
So I have to lean in, grab her and pull her down. And so it's almost like I'm doing a exercise called a good morning. And so I'm navigating 40 pounds many times throughout the day. And you will too. Um, I've gotten dog food in, um, I helped my friend move that transmission. Uh, and I am staring right now. I have two, uh, car seats that I'm, uh, not child car seats, but they're like van car seats and they're probably 40 pounds each, a really odd shape. And so I carried him up the stairs and right now they're sitting in, in the podcast room and they're kind of like our studio seat, if you will, they're going to go in the van eventually, but you will move objects that are over 20 pounds.
You will, I'm almost going to gamble. Everybody's done it this week already. Think back to the heaviest thing that you picked up this week. And if you're not sure what, how much it weighs, grab it and go weigh it. And you'll be surprised. Holy crap. That thing was like, that thing was like 30 pounds. I was told to never lift 20 pounds again. What the heck? I already ruined myself. No, you, you're doing, you're doing just, just fine. And you might notice that that weight probably didn't even bother you either. A lot of times when people walk into our office performance place, they see all the weights and kettlebells and dumbbells and bumper plates and so on.
We have various types of equipment that can be used in a strength training format. They can be used in a workout format, but really they're more to simulate scenarios. Picking up something off the ground is just one of them. We also have a heavy bag, which is 70 pounds, which sometimes people have to grab and to carry. There's also a backpack that's about 25 pounds. It's our emergency preparedness kit. We live in California. And so it's good to have one of those things. So we have various objects around the office because you will have to navigate it one day. And there's a good saying out there that, um, a lot of times when people have reoccurring problems, like they have reoccurring back pain or reoccurring knee pain, and they've been avoiding using it for a while.
It's not that your joints have degenerated or they've gotten worse in that respect. They're just physically unprepared. Think about that physically unprepared. Uh, I remember there was one time I was running, uh, half marathons. There was a couple of years in a row where I was training for half marathons. Uh, I wasn't playing baseball at the time. Uh, I should have been, I like it doing much more anyways, but at some point I went back into playing baseball and I was doing both in combination and actually take it back. I wasn't doing marathons. I was doing half triathlons or half iron at the time.
And so, uh, if you don't know what half iron is, it's, it's running a half marathon and biking 70 miles. And so it's, it's a lot, uh, it's a lot of long, slow volume of cardiovascular fitness. And so, uh, I went and played baseball, which regards sprinting, man, I was so sore. I was so sore the next day. And I was sore for multiple days. If I recall, it was, it was probably three, four days. And I thought to myself, I'm like, why? Like, I'm so, I thought I was so prepared. I've been running and biking and so on. Well, I was prepared for those activities. I wasn't prepared for sprinting and I wasn't prepared for swinging and I wasn't prepared for throwing.
So it would all make sense why I'm having stiffness in some, um, uh, muscle soreness from that. But it would also make sense that I would have some pain too. We have people every year. I know that we're diverting off the idea of back pain, but, um, I just have a lot of, uh, experience with this every year when we play actual back pain, the same thing. We play baseball. Okay. Me and a team play baseball and, uh, I play baseball in the summertime and the, or sorry, springtime, summertime season. We go all the way through October and then October through, uh, I think it's March or end February where nobody really, that whole team doesn't really play.
So I jump onto another team and we play the winter time and we meet on Sundays and we practice and so we're out in the field for like three, four hours, you know, it's messing around. And so without fail every year, you know, like we lose players. They're usually new players, but either, either way we do lose players who have injuries on game one and game two. This year we lost, uh, we had three pitchers who were supposed to be pitching on our team. We lost all of them by the time the fifth game came. Why is that? Probably physical unpreparedness. Um, I can't, I can't verify that, but if they'd been physically prepared and testing things out before they actually came to the game, they probably wouldn't have run into a problem.
Also their shoulder. I mean, throwing is very rapid, um, very, very rapid movement. So swinging a baseball bat, how do you expect to do nothing for six months and swing a bat and all of a sudden feel okay. You know, it would make sense that it would create some problems, maybe not long-term disability, but it creates some problems. And by the way, I should note that all of these people that, uh, at least that we lost this season, I don't think any of them are going to going to be physically disabled from being unprepared and having the injury. It's just that they now have pain when they do that activity and that can be rehabbed.
It can be addressed just like not being able to lift a 20 pound object. It can all be addressed. The body is super adaptable. Um, people do get better, but they have to have the right help. Now, can you learn to use your hips on your own while lifting? Yes, you can. There's tons of videos online. We have online products. We have online, um, uh, programs that actually take. People through those, but also too, you have to understand that we do have people who call us, we work with them virtually and in person. And some, they say, well, you know, I, I want to use the videos to learn how to deadlift.
You think if I watched that one video, I'll learn how to deadlift. Well, I mean, you, yeah, you get the basics of it, but at the same time, um, that's almost insulting to people who are very good at deadlifting saying that, oh, you know, I just did it once I got, I'm all, I can do it. Like you learned how to pitch in a day, you know, like it's, there's there, it's a skillset and there's a lot of things that you may need to be coached on to be able to do it. Well, um, I worked with a gentleman recently where, uh, I saw him virtually. We were working on, uh, mainly his hamstring problem. Um, his hamstring, uh, is aggravated with running and I've given him some exercises to do, and he's doing a very good job of, of doing the exercises.
However, sometimes, and I'm bringing this up because the hip hinge or deadlift pattern is very hard for some people in some situations. And I'm bringing this to your attention because yeah, you could watch a video on it, but you may not feel it in the right areas and you may not do it, do it well. You might use a, a compensated pattern, if you will. Um, this gentleman, I showed him a deadlift on a video. Um, I coached him through video. It seemed like it went okay there. Um, when he did it, he had a 15 pound bag or so in his hand. It wasn't very heavy. Uh, and he was very physically able to, it's not like he was, uh, he sits in a chair like 10 hours a day and then sleeps the remainder.
Like he's physically able, he walks and, uh, is physically active every day. Uh, however, I spoke with him about three weeks later and I said, uh, how's that deadlift going? And he's like, well, it's going okay. Uh, you know, I feel it in my back. I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, I started doing it and my back gets stiff. I feel like my back just won't turn off. It's always doing part of the work. I said, okay, let's, let's go through it. Let's coach you out of it. We did a 45 minute session. Uh, I want to say we covered deadlifting. It took about 20, 25 minutes between a handful of other exercises that we use as precursor ones and actually coaching the deadlift with a 15 pound weight.
Um, he didn't have any back pain after we were done while doing the deadlift. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I gave him multiple suggestions, which some of them didn't work. That's just the way it goes. A lot of times suggesting a hip hinge versus using your back while lifting. It sounds really easy in theory, but sometimes it's not habits come into the, come into the situation and it's hard to break habits sometimes. And so using someone to coach you through the movement to spare your spine can be very valuable because the person looks at you and sees what you're doing and they give instant feedback of how to do it a different way or what to focus on while doing it a different way.
I can tell you right now, if you're thinking about you, uh, keeping your back flat and extending your hips and making sure your feet in the right position and shoulder width apart and looking up the ceiling, I can, I can already tell you it's going to be very challenging for you, because you're thinking about too much when someone coaches you and they do a really good job. And by the way, we strive to do this at performance place, but still we, we get caught up to it's a, it's a, it's a hard, it's a challenging skill to, to learn. We try to have you focus on one thing. And if you do that thing, well, then in your dead lifting looks a little better than we will give you another suggestion.
Uh, this is called retention. Uh, we would not move you to algebra two. If you did not retain algebra one, you have to be able to do the skill and then you move on from the skill and eventually get into the, uh, the main exercise, which is dead lifting. You put a little bit of weight on and that's, that's where you're at. But the, but the trouble is a lot of times people aren't focusing on one thing and they don't know what to look for because they're doing the exercise. I hired someone, uh, a while back, uh, when I was having back pain and I had pain picking up objects and, uh, I asked him to coach me and, uh, I wouldn't say he coached me for two months, maybe two to three months for one to two times a week.
We changed the frequency. And at some point he said, look, I, why are you, why do you, why do you still need me? I think that like, you look like you're doing a good job. And I said, I appreciate your honesty. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right. You know, like I want to make sure I feel good because I was scared of hurting myself again and, uh, that's very, very common. And so if you feel that it's completely normal, but reintroducing it again is really important. Now, how much should you be able to deadlift? Well, it depends on how much you will use throughout the day. The trouble with going too far and too beyond, uh, with the weight training is that realistically, if your body doesn't use it, it'll lose it.
So if you learned to deadlift 200 pounds and you get strong, but you only go for walks in the day, uh, and that's all the, really the goal was you like to go hiking, you're probably not going to be able to deadlift 200 pounds very long, which is okay. Um, but you may need to do a deadlift of a hundred pounds to get you to the goal of walking and any given time you should be able to lift that a hundred pounds, whether you've been to the gym a bunch or not, you should be able to pick up the a hundred pounds, uh, in a deadlift or a squatting style, some style that's off the ground. And that will make you physical, uh, strong enough to do the activity that you want to re engage in.
So when you guys are thinking about what you would do, actually, I want you guys to think about if you woke up tomorrow and you didn't have any back pain or sciatica whatsoever, what would you do? A lot of you may not even have an idea. Uh, this happens a lot of times with, um, mothers and fathers and people who have had pain for a while. They, they lose the idea of, of what activity would create pleasure. You know, uh, I like playing baseball. Some people like golfing, other people like running and so on. And whatever you like, I'm sure washing the dishes and pushing the, the, the vacuum cleaner and lifting objects at work is not your passion.
Although they are very realistic goals and very attainable. But if you focus on the goal, you'll figure out what your actual, uh, weight that you should lift off the ground again, should be. If you want to be a weight lifter, you're going to have to lift a lot more than 20 pounds, a lot more than a hundred and probably more than 200. If you're playing baseball, like I am, you know, around 200 pounds would be pretty up there for recreational baseball player. I'll take it. I don't know if lifting anymore is going to help me, but, uh, if I wasn't able to lift 20 pounds, I'd pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to play Sunday baseball.
So there's a happy medium in there. It's like a Goldilocks zone. So if you guys have any questions about this topic, feel free to reach out to us at info at p2sportscare.com. We also have online and virtual programs. Uh, we love to customize programs for people. Uh, and we've had a lot of people who have posted, uh, podcasts like this on Facebook, on their forums and have helped a lot of people. And so if you guys are part of one of those forums and you like this information, you think someone else should, should hear it by all means, share this with, uh, we'd love to be part of the, of a solution.
So don't get afraid. You will, you will get better. Most of you will get better. You just need to find the right avenue for you. And we'd love to help you out through that. So contact us info at p2sportscare.com. Subscribe to the show. I'll see you guys next time.
