Back Pain from training

[seienchin]

Over the years as I moved forwards in the class structure, I have had the opportunity to watch many, many people ahead of me doing all kinds of funny stretches!:D What stands out most in my memory, is people "stretching out their backs". What I mean by this, is senior grades (4th kyu and above), always seemed to be bending and twisting, and trying to get their backs comfortable...and then it happened to me...

Everyone where I trained just seemed to accept that with lots of training, your lower back would ache.

With the wisdom of hindsight, this seems like a fairly stupid approach, but I am interested if others have had this observation or experience, or if dojos adopt specific practices to avoid it.

In hindsight, and with the advance of sports science, I think I can now safely say that the cause was a distinct lack of core stability training in our strength and conditioning work.

Anyone else got any observations on low back pain from karate training?

OSU-EN2

[supergroup7]

Gee Seienchin, I've noticed some people complaining about lower back pain as we train. I always thought that it might be connected with the fact that they were having troubles keeping proper posture the majority of the time (shoulders back, hips tucked in, etc.) I didn't think that the pain was coming just from karate training, but more from the day to day bad posture habits of slouching.

[chen3141]

I've never felt too much back pain from karate, but when I started judo a few months ago, my lower back would ache like crazy.

What helped was I began sleeping on a harder surface, and throughout the day I kept correcting my posture (back straight, shoulders back and down).

[vapor]

I would agree with the above comments that karate does not cause, but likely aggrevates the daily build up of poor posture and weakness of the core muscles.

I went to a chiropractor (who were set on doing "soft" conditioning....meaning they were more focused on massaging better spine placement, then popping things around).

Anyway, he pointed out that I have a tendacy to stand and sit with my shoulders slouched forward...due to that posture, I was actually causing the muscles surrounding my shoulder blades to be taunt constantly, and not allowing them to return to their resting state.

He suggested some simple exercises/movements to reduce the tauntness, and recommended that I be keenly aware of where my shoulders were at during the day, especially as I sat at my computer.

vapor

[bushido spirit]

i used to face the same prob. when i had to do intense training , but finaly i came to realise that i needed some lower back training to make it stronger "deadlifts" as an example ..........the stronger the better

[A-jay]

I think the biggest problem is not age but training.
Our back consists of 3 muscles but we usually only train 1.
All the pressure goes to your lower back because the rest cant help stabilize

[Shokei Marcsui]

What A-Jay said. In class we constantly work our abdominal muscle region. I've been working on lower back outside of class to achieve a strong core.

[powerof0ne]

I haven't heard of this problem really plaguing Kyokushin and offshoots much but it happens a lot in Shotokan because of more focus on deep stances. The more Okinawan styles don't have this problem as much because of higher stances..I know many old timers personally in shito ryu and shotokan that have unfortunately put there karate training on the backburner because of backpain. Haven't really noticed this problem in knockdown styles...but bad posture will eventually catch up to anyone.
Now...I can attest that jumping out of planes a lot is bad on your knees and back, but that's way offtopic :)

[sonofkanga]

In my experience,Kyokushin helps to alivate back pain .Of course having an instructor with a background in sports science,Yoga and a few other related areas helps.
So does having a chiropractor as a student.
When performed correctly,Karate increases core stability
in a balanced way.

[A-jay]

What A-Jay said. In class we constantly work our abdominal muscle region. I've been working on lower back outside of class to achieve a strong core.

Osu Marcsui-san, you took the words out of my mouth. When I do pushups, my core gets tired before my arms do.
Kinda ironic, isn't it! A good core is important. So when you train your back you have to train your abs as well to stay in balance. Unfortunately I had to learn this the hard way (during my grading)

[sonofkanga]

This thread is really interesting to me.
Have quite a few students that started KK with back pains.After a period of adjustment all commented on how KK improved there life quality,and reduced the pain to a minimum.
Granted,if you go beyond your ROM, you`r asking for trouble,otherwise, in my experience KK is very beneficial.

[chen3141]

This thread is really interesting to me.
Have quite a few students that started KK with back pains.After a period of adjustment all commented on how KK improved there life quality,and reduced the pain to a minimum.
Granted,if you go beyond your ROM, you`r asking for trouble,otherwise, in my experience KK is very beneficial.

I've heard from many people that the most in shape they ever were was when they were doing a MA.

[FutureProdigy]

i for one have had back pains that were continually aggravated by kyokushin, but i also train judo 2-3 a week on top of karate.

[doogfood]

Over the years as I moved forwards in the class structure, I have had the opportunity to watch many, many people ahead of me doing all kinds of funny stretches!:D What stands out most in my memory, is people "stretching out their backs". What I mean by this, is senior grades (4th kyu and above), always seemed to be bending and twisting, and trying to get their backs comfortable...and then it happened to me...


I see a lot of people stretching their back when they're actually trying to stretch other muscles. A classic example is someone trying to stretch their hamstrings by doing a "sit and reach" (sit with legs straight out and reach for toes). Many people concentrate too much on reaching for the toe and end up curling their low back and stretching it. A proper method would be to keep the low back straight and stable in that posture, tilt the pelvis forward (hard to imagine but concentrate and bringing your navel down to the ground), and keep knees straight.