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Hi everyone! My lower back is bruised, I'm 99% sure it's because of an intensive plank workout I did yesterday (pushing my arms forwards as much as possible) which made me work that area quite intensively, I did 4 sets of 30 seconds with 1 minute breaks between sets. This morning my back was hurting, when I looked in the mirror I had dark bruises all the way down my lower back on both sides. I found this quite worrying, so I have a few questions: -Is this normal? I assume that it just means I worked too intensively which I'm not too worried about since it's the first time it's happened in that area. -What can I do to fix it ASAP? -What should I avoid doing in the future? -How long should I wait before doing the exercise again? Do I have to actually wait until the bruises are completely gone? I should probably mention that I ate quite a lot of garlic with a meal yesterday, and I've read that garlic thins the blood which makes bruising easier, I also get bruises very easily in general, my forearms are usually spattered with yellow after a karate class even if I don't remember any impacts on them. Thanks in advance for any help, Pierre

So - about a month ago I went lifting with some friends in a different gym than my own. I'm not sure what happened - I blame the bodybuilding vibe - but something I did during that session made my lower back hate me for a while. This was very frustrating as I was in the final week before testing my 1RM DL after 16 weeks of this program. I could still be active - cycling and so on - but any lifting made my back sore again so I went cold turkey for a few weeks. I've started doing some light, core-and-arms focused workouts in the last ten days (dips, Turkish get ups, farmer's walks) and my back is still a tiny bit niggly but getting better all the time. I don't want to start DLing heavy again until I'm 100% happy with my back, but when I do, any advice on where to restart the program related to the time I've had to take off - one week back in the program for every week off? How do you decide where to restart after an injury?

From the title of this challenge, you might have guessed that I am going to be working on improving my kicks again. Even though my kicks have improved a great deal over the last few months, I know that they can be even better. 1 - Mobility: Mobility is still at the top of the list and again, Cheechoe's hip routine is going to be the main focus. I have seen more improvement in the short time I have been doing her routine than I have in years of trying other routines and fixes. I am still going to do the resets because they loosen me up. The goal is to do the OS resets at least five days a week and Cheechoe's hip routine at least three days a week with at least one day in between sessions and not on a Karate class day. 2 - Do 2 full Karate workouts at home each week. Same as last time but this time I want to really clean up my basics. I want to learn to relax, tense and relax all my movements as quickly as possible and the Karate workout that I am currently, which is loaded with basics, is a good place to work on this concept. 3 - Do at least 2 support workouts per week. What I mean by support is glute / leg / core focused workouts with some upper-body thrown in for good measure. Since I hurt my back this last time around, I need to get back, pun intended, to making my body bulletproof. I have a workout structure in mind already and I will share it once I get the details figured out. Life goal: Focus my mind on finding a job. Being out of work for the last 6+ months has taken a toll not only my on bank account but also my mind. I have applied for many jobs, that looked like a great fit, but have often seen no response or the "you have more experience than we are looking for." With that said, I am pulling out all the stops to find either contract work, full time, work from home, freelance work or a combination of all four.

Wasn't sure where to post this but I recently discovered this yoga routine that has been a total game changer for me, and wanted to share in case it helps anyone else out! I've struggled a lot to do body weight squats with good form. I just couldn't get myself low enough and felt that it was more of an inflexibility/tightness issue than lack of strength (although I'm sure that doesn't help). I've been analyzing my posture and form lately as I've started exercising more and realized a lot of my hangups come from my lower back, which just feels weak, inflexible, and excessively curved in (maybe some hyperlordosis going on?) Anyways I recently went through this yoga routine and it felt AMAZING - like all of the troubles above just melted away as my hips and lower back opened up and relaxed. At one point during the routine I laughed out loud because it felt so good and felt like exactly what my body has been needing for a long time. The main reason I thought to share this is because after doing this routine, on a hunch I tried a body weight squat and the difference was like night and day! I could drop below parallel like it aint no thing! Ok, it was still physically challenging, but I felt that I could finally do it with proper form. Besides just the squats I also feel more comfortable going about my day; walking, standing, and sitting in front of a computer feel a lot better having stretched out and opened up this muscle group. I think this is going to have a big impact on my daily life as well as my exercise goals - I hope some of you will enjoy it as much as I did!

So a few years ago I tore a muscle in my lower left back (3rd quadrant, I believe). The first time around, I didn't let it heal properly and developed a mass of scar tissue that left it very stiff. I was able to break it up with a few trips to the chiropractor but the muscle was still very weak and (surprise surprise) I injured myself again last October that put me out of work for a week. Since then I've been working slowly to build my lower back muscles back up, using mostly low-impact exercises and pilates. I really want to start weight lifting, but I'm scared that I might injure myself again. Any advice on how to get started the right way?

Hi everybody, I just started incorporating single-leg romanian deadlifts (RDLs) into my routine. I did them for the first time last Friday with probably a 10lb dumbbell in each hand. When I was doing them, I felt it in my hamstrings (like I'm supposed to), but after (like 1-2 hours), I felt it in my lower back. In fact, I still feel it in my lower back and it's Monday morning... My hamstrings are also still sore. So my question is, did I do something wrong or am I just not used to that movement? I should mention that Friday was kind of a "backside" day, meaning most of my exercises focused on my back and my hamstrings. I also did one-arm dumbbell rows, but I've never had those cause soreness in my lower back. On one hand, I'm like - good! That means I'm strengthening my lower back! On the other hand, I'm like - uh, was that too much? Was that wrong?

It's so awesome to have my legs feel like jelly again! Seriously. I haven't been able to squat for about 5 weeks, or do anything that rotated the hips/curved the lower back/sacral area. The strain probably isn't completely healed - but I tried to be careful and test various movements. I busted out 3 sets of squats - can tell I'm not 100% healed but I'm way better than I was. Did squats and back lunges for leg work, military presses w/resistance bands for arm work, and bird dogs (5 second hold per rep) and planks for core work. Stretching felt great after. Such a great feeling to feel like I've actually done some work! (I'm still a little scared I did too much too fast... but I'm giving myself the weekend to recover, and using ice and ibuprofen to keep any extra swelling down. I was going crazy not doing squats!)

Hello, all. Today, I'd like to talk about two areas of concern that have raised questions in my mind about how to proceed safely with my current basic strength routine. Shoulders/Rotator Cuff -- I have a very basic understanding of the data I've been trying to collect regarding shoulder strength and flexibility, but what follows is a brief description: It was described to me that beneath the major muscles of the shoulder (deltoids, trapezius, terres, and pectoralis major), there are a series of smaller muscle groups that assist in finer rotator function (like rotating) which are not engaged while engaging the larger muscle groups during movements like my beloved bench press or standing military press. The potential result being soreness and injury to the rotator cuff as the untrained minor muscle groups fail to keep up with the stresses produced by your (hopefully) rapidly growing delts, traps, etc. What I've been dealing with is a deep-tissue soreness that seems to have a focus in the indentation between my front deltoids and the highest of the three pect muscle groups that radiates into my front deltoid. I've found a set of very low-weight (2-3 lbs.) rotary exercises that I can do on off-days. Is there anything I can do beyond these assistive exercises to strengthen those minor muscles and connective tissues? Spinal Flexibility -- When I was rather young, I had suffered an impact injury that had resulted in a major concussion, and the fracturing of three of the vertabrae in the lower portion of my neck. Years later, I had displaced the third and fourth lower lumbar vertebrae and pinched my spinal cord while doing squats with improper form. In short, with the added stresses from my military days, and moving 5-7 tons of heavy automotive parts a day in a warehouse job, my spine has had its proverbial butt kicked. What I've been running into is a mild tightness in my upper back as I transition into better posture, and a small ammount of tightness in my lower back that results in a sort of "tucking in" of my butt as I drop the last few inches to parallel thighs in my squats and dead lifts (my upper back stays tight and not rounded, but my lower arch flattens out as my butt is pulled under slightly). I stretch after every workout, and most mornings as I wake up. My lower back flexibility seems to be improving, but I notice that I have very bad flexibility in my hamstrings. I've discovered a stretch that lengthens the hams by engaging the quads (stand on one leg and raise the other parallel to the floor, knee bent and relaxed... grabbing the thigh just behind the knee, flex the quads to straighten the leg while flexing the tibialis to pull the toes up towards the knee... hold for 2 seconds, relax, repeat several times) in such a way that the hams don't try to flex in resistance to applied force (like what happens in a standard "runner's stretch"). Does anyone have any other suggestions on what I might do to increase bending and rotational flexibility for my spine? And might my hips be part of the problem potentially? Sorry for the very long post, and thanks in advance for any help you offer.