Bad back

[MOTD]

Should i stop working out 3-4 days because i have a bad back?

I have had it for about a week but have continued to work out. Would it be better for my body to let it recover and then carry on working out rather than hoping my exercises might do it good?

 

[bipennate]

Define "bad back."

But 99.9% of the time, you need to rest and recover. Then you need to figure out what mistakes you made to get yourself injured in the first place and correct them (assuming no acute traumatic event)

 

[Tone]

Sleep on your side with a pillow in between your legs, it's the best sleeping position for your back!



But yeah if you're experiencing pain in your back while exercising, you need to stop and figure out what you're doin wrong.

Continuing to workout through the pain could further aggrivate the problem causin serious injury.

 

[Karky]

i always sleep like that, did it long before i knew about the back position, i just did it because i like sleeping on my side, but i dont like my balls getting smashed between my legs.

 

[dswithers]

I assume by bad back, you mean you have some degree of pain, soreness, stiffness or discomfort in some part of your back. The secret is to learn to listen to your body and know when the problem is just something that means you had a last good workout or is something that requires rest or medical intervention (like any other pain, soreness, discomfortor stiffness in any other part of your body). That is, is the pain in the muscle or the joints and connective tissue? If the pain is in the muscle, and you are not grossly overtraining, then more exercise will not hurt anything and might even help. However, if the problem is in the joint or connective tissue then more exercise might make it worse.

One thing that might give some evidence would be to stretch or do some very light weight, full ROM, high repetition movements. If the pain tends to go away after this then is might only mean you had a good last workout. If the pain gets worse after this is might mean that you need rest or medical intervention.

Of course, the best course of action, if you don't know, is to rest and see your doctor if it continues.