Chronic Back Pain - Triathlon Training - Help

[pudding_bowl]

Great posting from everyone here, took quite a read to get up to date! haha. Awesome to see such high level of input into a case. I loved reading it because I kept thinking "oh I think it's probably this" and then the next post would say exactly what I was thinking!
To add my bit... A Thoracic derangement is very rare even in the McKenzie world. I really feel that you may have hurt a facet joint in the thoracic spine and this is causing inflammation and contributing to a neural tension problem. I believe some manual therapy in the form of mobilisations may be very helpful and hopefully your physio could help you with this - a bit of massage isn't bad but won't have a lasting effect on relaxing the muscles. Refrain from poor postures (this has already been said i.e. don't do cycling right away) as this can impair your healing process.
As for home exercises, From a McKenzie stand-point you can do the McKenzie push up with your hands further away from your body - this targets the thoracic a bit better, but if it is higher up which it sounds like it is then we often use leaning backwards over a chair in sitting or lying on a table and letting the head and thoracic spine come back off the edge (get someone to hold your feet if your worried about slipping off). - These exercises are great as they mobilise the joints and though are not as specific as a physio mobilising a specific segment they can do a certain amount of help.

Good luck

[drekkly]

Hi All

Just been reading through all the excellent feedback again and have a few comments to make. Firstly i googled "McKenzie exercises for thoracic problems" and wondered if my pain was a little too high for such exercises? On You Tube the therapist mentioned these were for people with disc herniations who are experiencing pain in the lower back extending down the back of the leg. That's not me? Pudding Bowl suggests doing them with the hands further away from the body - perhaps I shall try this.

Pudding bowl - you also mention the leaning back over the chair exercises. I have a large inflatable pilates ball - would lying on this with the head kept on the ball and rotating the ball backwards be the same ?

Sigmik you say "Damien is quite right that I agree in laying off training and movements that seem to aggravate your pain" I have been thinking about this and hard to know straight away what is exagerating the soreness. For example Sunday I ran 10k with no pain at all during the run or after. The same with my swim yesterday. It's only when I wake up in the morning that it feels very sore. Again, not pain, as such - just soreness. The only sport where I feel it whilst exercising is cycling but I have rollers for indoors cycling and can try that in a more upright position. I guess the problem is I need a reference point - a 'normal' waking up sensation for which to reference the impact of my exercise the previous day. As I said originally I had a week off exercise alltogether at the end of the summer and I was still left with some waking discomfort in the back.

The hardest thing to do for serial exercisers is to take it easy and rest unless they really really need to ! You learn to live with discomforts and all sorts of aches and pains - especially at my age! I guess the worst that can happen as Dr Damien says is "scar tissue forming/adhesions...this will make it harder to treat subsequently requiring more force to loosen up..." ie what I'm not hearing here is - don't overdo it or you could give yourself permanent non corrective injuries.

I think I will def lay off the circuit training until there is an improvement and go easy on the cycling. I shall do the slump test exercses daily and try the leaning backwards and mackenzie exercises and see how it goes. I saw my GP yesterday and he has referred me to an NHS physio but that may be 2 months. Tempted to find a skilled non NHS physio though and get it sorted sooner though.

Thanks all again and I will keep you posted

Nick