Better than the Batman: Coming Back from Back Pain

Whether your back was broken by Bane or tweaked by an overzealous clean and jerk, back pain can be a real pain in the area below your back. It can also sideline you from your workout for longer than you’d like – two weeks or longer. Lucky for you, there are steps you can take to recover faster from a back injury and get back to your workout.

Rest, rest, rest.

This is obvious, but rest is the most important thing for recovering from sports injury – especially a back injury. If you try to get on the squat rack before your back is ready, you’re going to really hurt something, and a full-on back problem is no joke. You don’t want to screw something up and spend the rest of your athletic career on a treadmill, before you finally get fed up and have ineffective back surgery. That’s a lot of money and frustration all because you couldn’t be patient. 

Roll it out

You should be doing this anyway as part of your everyday recovery, but once you sprain your back, you should definitely go ahead and drop $20 on a foam roller. It’s difficult to use one of these things incorrectly, you just need to roll around until it feels good. For back pain we recommend that you lay perpendicular on top of the roller and slowly slide up and down, applying a decent amount of pressure. Roll out for about 10 minutes and you should feel some discomfort start to ease. You can then lay on the roller parallel and roll out those muscles along your spine.

Ice to meet you

Ice helps suppress inflammation, which helps your muscles heal. You can buy a fancy, freezable back wrap, or just toss some cubes into a plastic bag. Either way, numb up that back 30-45 minutes daily to speed your recovery process. Make sure not to apply the ice directly to your back (frostbite also slows your recovery) – wrap it in a sock or towel. 

Find your center at a yoga class

Hitting the weight room is a risky proposition with back pain (who knows if you’ll be able to resist the temptation to do just one deadlift), but you have to go somewhere after work, right? Yoga is no-impact, stretches out your back and can even help you burn a few kcals while you’re laid up recuperating. If you’re new to yoga or just want a relaxing experience, consider a vinyasa flow class, if you’re up for a challenge, bikram yoga cranks up the heat and intensity. 

Patch up

Heliopatch patches take advantage of your natural body chemistry to neutralize destructive free radicals. With free radicals neutralized by the flow of electrons from your Heliopatch patch, your cells work more efficiently, which allows them to recover faster and get you back in the gym quicker. 

We know it’s hard to resist the call of the gym, which is why, at Heliopatch, we’re working to get you back into shape faster.