pavedwave longboarding

Nicholas Jackson · Joined: 17 Nov 2008 Posts: 29

Hi,

I have been suffering from a bad back for a couple of months now, this I attributed to my bike, however I now think this is due to pumping.

I'm a tall bloke 6ft 6, and I have muscle pain in my lower back (specifically on the right, I am goofy footed). I went to see the Doc about this and she showed me some exercises to do which I did and things got better. During this period I had been training like crazy on my bike with no back pain but due to bad weather I had not been riding my mermaid. I am still doing the stretches prescribed by the doc.

So this last week the weather has been good, I'm back on my board and my bad back has come back.

Has anyone experienced a problem like this? I am guessing the problem is either one of two things.

1. Bad technique.
2. Poor muscle structure due to being new to pumping.

I have not ridden any marathon sessions lately, the furthest I ride is to work and back about 3 mile a day.

Many Thanks,

Nic

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Hey Nic, I feel your woes. Both my lower back issues were due to some kind of physical labor in the past. What I've been trying to learn for the long-haul is how to make LDP strengthen rather than re-injure my back, but it's taken some time to figure out just the right balance.

This topic has been silently at the forefront of my brain for the last few years, so I'm going to take it up later and for the sake of brevity just cut to the chase on your point:

I'm curious how much you twist when you pump -- as the twist can definitely agitate the back. And surprisingly, when you don't already have an injury (or just have youth on your side) you can actually twist a lot and not injure yourself, but it's still not the most efficient way to pump.

The one thing that really keeps my back from re-injuring is keeping the entire core region from the lower abs to the shoulders static, but pumping by moving my entire core / entire center of gravity. Shoulders and head pointed closer to the direction of travel is a kind of "race stance" and I find by focusing on that you tend to keep your waist from moving too much. It would be really interesting to see a short vid of your current pump style, maybe ask a biker to shoot you a while -- and see if that might be part of it?

I'm going to just list a few things for the sake of brevity that worked for me after a lot of experimentation and therapy sessions. It all boils down to strengthening and stretching.

The good:
- minimalist pumps, keeping the core and shoulders straight
- hamstring stretching
- swiss-ball abdominal exercises, contracting abdominals
- PC, or pelvic-floor muscles
- pulling stretch bands to strengthen back
- Bikram or "hot" yoga
- taking long baths with Epsom salts
- learning to pump switch to balance out the back muscles

The not so good:
- electric stimulation therapy
- massage (nice if you can afford to keep it up though)

The only kind of pumping that makes my back feel funky again is when we do really tight or fast slalom with offsets that require "reaching out" to make it around cones. Even that is finally getting better this season. But whenever I start feeling it in the lower back, I just get back out on the trail and forget the cones for a week or so.

It was also surprising to find that biking to work agitates my lower back if I hit it hard for 3-4 days in a row -- I thought that being upright would have the complete opposite effect and take a lot of pressure off, but I think it's something to do with bending over to grip the handlebars but keeping the back straight and not "hunching" over? The frame is pretty well dialed and tuned, so I'm convinced it's also a technique issue.

I think using minimalist pumps when out skating the trails, and keeping up the stretches and ab strengthening, all complement each other really well, and a gradual approach is the main thing. I don't start really pumping aggressively until I've already been going a good 10 minutes or so. I hope this gets better for you and maybe we can trade some notes down the road.

cheers