One of the problems with diagnosing sciatica is that there can be such as variety of causes. If you’re like me and have a long history of dealing with this problem, it can be very frustrating!
My sciatic pain had been dormant for a few years. What seems to make it flare up is heavy lifting – to include heavy kettlebell swings and deadlifts (and yes, my form is close to perfect, as verified by my RKC instructor)! Way back when, my doc told me that based on my MRI I had a calcified herniated disk at L5-S1, so this sort of thing was something I could expect to come up from time to time.
However, I now believe that either in addition to – or in place of - the disk thing, trigger points have something to do with this! And I suspect the trigger points are a result of my core not being sufficiently strong to protect my injured back area when doing these lifts.
So the point is, if sciatic pain flares up after doing swings (for me it is almost always after, usually at night), it may be a good idea to back off (which I did not, and am now paying for!). Over the past few weeks I’ve put down the bells and gone back to bodyweight work, as I believe my body is telling me that I have some structural and central nervous system weaknesses that need to be addressed at body weight before I pick up the weights again.
Funny thing is, this break from weights is really doing me some good – by focusing on 360 degree ab work with a physical therapist + pullups, planks, and partial one-leg squats (and associated variations of all of these) + daily qigong, jumping rope and lots of walking, I am getting much stronger! Pavel really is right when he says strong abs + strong hands = strong body. As you’ve heard before, with strength it’s not the size of the muscles, it’s how well connected they are…
So if you have a history of sciatic pain and low back instability, I personally recommend that your core be super-strong before you do any heavy kettlebell work, and also consider cycling between a few weeks of bells and a few weeks of bodyweight work.
Hope to be able to get back to the kettlebells sooner than later – I absolutely love doing 12 minute swing sessions and TGU’s – and swings were absolutely essential for finally activating my posterior chain (hint – a good way to keep it active when not doing swings is to do super-slow wall squats or pistol variations, along with pullups).
One of the problems with diagnosing sciatica is that there can be such as variety of causes. If you’re like me and have a long history of dealing with this problem, it can be very frustrating!
My sciatic pain had been dormant for a few years. What seems to make it flare up is heavy lifting – to include heavy kettlebell swings and deadlifts (and yes, my form is close to perfect, as verified by my RKC instructor)! Way back when, my doc told me that based on my MRI I had a calcified herniated disk at L5-S1, so this sort of thing was something I could expect to come up from time to time.
However, I now believe that either in addition to – or in place of - the disk thing, trigger points have something to do with this! And I suspect the trigger points are a result of my core not being sufficiently strong to protect my injured back area when doing these lifts.
So the point is, if sciatic pain flares up after doing swings (for me it is almost always after, usually at night), it may be a good idea to back off (which I did not, and am now paying for!). Over the past few weeks I’ve put down the bells and gone back to bodyweight work, as I believe my body is telling me that I have some structural and central nervous system weaknesses that need to be addressed at body weight before I pick up the weights again.
Funny thing is, this break from weights is really doing me some good – by focusing on 360 degree ab work with a physical therapist + pullups, planks, and partial one-leg squats (and associated variations of all of these) + daily qigong, jumping rope and lots of walking, I am getting much stronger! Pavel really is right when he says strong abs + strong hands = strong body. As you’ve heard before, with strength it’s not the size of the muscles, it’s how well connected they are…
So if you have a history of sciatic pain and low back instability, I personally recommend that your core be super-strong before you do any heavy kettlebell work, and also consider cycling between a few weeks of bells and a few weeks of bodyweight work.
Hope to be able to get back to the kettlebells sooner than later – I absolutely love doing 12 minute swing sessions and TGU’s – and swings were absolutely essential for finally activating my posterior chain (hint – a good way to keep it active when not doing swings is to do super-slow wall squats or pistol variations, along with pullups).