How does a PT who understands pain react to an “injury” while working out? Part 6

I’ll answer some of the questions I posed in my own personal low back “injury” story.

What caused your low back pain in the first place?

Pain is the result of your brain deciding you’re in danger (What is pain? French Bread!) It is an interpretation of what’s going on. It’s a best guess. If I am in pain, it does not mean I am already injured, that wouldn’t really help me that much. It is there to PREVENT injury. Your brain interprets whether or not you’re in danger based on a lot of different factors. These factors include your experiences, your beliefs, your fears, as well as the actual state of your physical tissues (whether or not your tissues are physically in harm’s way) among other things. My brain comes to a conclusion with all the data it has (which includes my experiences, beliefs, fears and state of my tissues). If it finds I need to be protected, I will feel pain to change my current behavior.

So why did I feel pain specifically in this particular situation?
Well it’s hard to point to one reason that is the cause of pain. Like I said, there are so many factors involved here. You can’t say it is just one reason. In this particular situation, I will say I wasn’t really focused on my lifting technique, my head was somewhere else. So it’s very possible my technique was off and I lifted the weight differently than I usually do. Lifting the weight differently in a way I am not accustomed to can increase the chance of pain since my body hasn’t been trained to do that. But that may just be the straw that broke the camel’s back. There have been plenty of times where I wasn’t as focused and lifted weight differently and didn’t feel pain either. Poor form doesn’t mean I HAVE to feel pain. It wasn’t the last straw that broke the camel’s back, it was all these straws working together that caused the camel’s back to break and my back to feel pain. The only thing I can say confidently about hurting my back last week is this:

“At that point in time, with all the information it had, my brain decided the load placed on my body is dangerous and I needed to be protected, which brought about the experience of pain”.

It worked, I definitely changed my behavior.
A lot of people get disappointed when I don’t “diagnose” them with a single cause for their pain. They shouldn’t be. It’s a good thing. It means there are many different ways to treat it.

If anything doesn’t make sense, call me out on it, question it.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This only applies to me in this particular situation.