Hi everyone.  i am new to this board.  i have been looking around and found a lot of useful info here!  i was hoping that someone could help me out a little more directly.  I had surgery on my back about 2 years ago. (herniated disk l4-l5).  Since the surgery i have been relatively inactive.  i went through the rehab, nad got minimal results and still have pain.  i have lost a lot of the muscle i used to carry with me and i am now a lean mean wussie machine.  i notice when i am more active, my pain intensifies, but after a couple days it seems to subside.  my hurdle is getting over the first couple weeks of a good regimine that can get my fitness level up from couch potato to average joe.  i love the concept of crossfit and really believe in the “program”.  i have no access to a gym (i live in rural vermont nearest gym is over an hour away), but i do have SOME things in the basement i can use (hommade pull up bar, some dumbells, few other weights).  not much i can do outside either as it is frostbite cold most days and we dont exactly have “safe” surfaces outside for exercise.  ok so i guess my questions are: what can i do to not only scale down the workouts (that seems to be covered here) but substitue exercises that i can perform that will not stress out my back and put me in bed for a week?  i just know that if i can strengthen my core adn get some muscle back i will feel so much better, then i will be able to slowly get back into the “real” exercises.  i am willing to buy some equipment for the basement if i need to, nad i am going to put in the effort, so any suggestions will not be made in vain!

Hi out4trout,
I dodged the surgery bullet, I was able to be treated with an epidural anti-inflammatory for my herniated disk.

The answer to your question is that there isn’t one answer to your question.

Your best approach is to follow the scaled WODs a few days behind the timing posted on the crossfit.com site and work out what you can do with the equipment you have, also considering the effect it’s going to have on your back. When you see something you can’t figure out how to do with what you’ve got, or that you think is going to lay you out, ask for help to work around that particular issue.

Over time you’ll build up your own personal little library of workarounds, which hopefully you will have to use less and less.

Let your ego go. Do “baby exercises” first and you stand a better chance of achieving your potential.

As far as equipment goes to get started with, you’re ahead of many of us on that front. If you’re at all handy we can point you at some resources that will help you to make some pieces of equipment the WODs will call for.

An injured back is the worst. When it’s bad you caint do nuthin.

out4trout.

1st: great advice from metric.
Here’s my $0.02 (im long time lurker, 1st or second time posting )

I have a posterior fusion T10-L2.  If I don’t work out for more than 4 or 5 days my back pain returns.  (and my surgery was in 1995!) I’ve found that the best thing for me is to just keep working out.  My wife makes fun of me because I go workout even when we are on vacation. 

You’ll need to start slowly, but I think that strengthing the whole posterior chain (the hamstrings, the calves, the glutes and those in the lower back), core and shoulders will help you.  It really helped me. 

from wikipedia
  “The primary exercises for developing the posterior chain are the Olympic lifts, good-mornings and deadlifts (particularly Romanian and stiff-legged deadlifts); the common denominator among these movements is an emphasis on hip extension. Other exercises include hyperextensions, reverse hyperextensions, glute-ham raises, lunges and full depth back squats.
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterior_chain”

most of which are included pretty often if crossit WoD. 

start off as a buttercup.  when you see a WoD that you’ve done before, try to do it either a little faster, or a little heavier, or scale it up a little bit closer to pack each time you see it.  everytime it that WoD comes up you’ll see progress and you’ll feel better. 

I would recommend buying some rings (for ring rows, dips, harder pushups, etc) and an olympic bar so that you can do good mornings, SDHP, light deadlifts, light front squats, light thrusters, light back squats and light overhead squats.    a word of caution: DONT KIP until your lower back and core are strong.  otherwise you’re going to regret it.

thanks for the tips.  i really appreciate the help.  i will start at the lowest level and go from there.  anyone have any “special” or additional exercises/movements that may be good to do in addition to the WOD?  something that would bring back some flexibility and a little bit of stregth into that area of my back.  what about warm ups…any thoughts there?

Are you familiar with the crossfit warmup?  Or as we like to call it around my house: the workout before the workout.

See here: 

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/faq.html#General7

So yeah, 45 pullups BEFORE the workout may or may not happen . . .

Scale this too. 

I think we’ve talked about this before, and Kempie suggested perhaps more, but shorter rounds.  i.e., 3x5 pushups etc. 

At our gym we usually start with a 800 meter warm up run (slowish, joggy).  However, you point out that you’re in the snow and ice, and you have back issues. 

We sub rowing for the folks who can’t run for whatever reason.  The problem is there is a lot of “back” in a row and that even presupposes you can get a rowing machine.

Maybe if you tell us what things you can do now that don’t cause you pain?  Can you step up onto something?  jump rope?  or does the jumping hurt?

And if you posted something you thought you could do, usually someone with some decent experience will point out holes or other options.

out4trout, lots of good stuff so far but let me build a little on what TP said.  With tongue in cheek he refers to the Crossfit warm-up as the workout before the workout - reason is for a lot of folks it is a workout all by itself.

I would actually suggest treating the warm-up as your workout for at least a couple weeks. 

Start with 5 rounds of

5 pull-ups (jumping or beginner pull-ups if necessary)
5 press-ups (or push-ups for you Americans )
5 sit-ups
5/5 lunges (walking or static)
10 squats

Push-ups emphasise keeping your body bosture static throughout the movement, no yoga-ing.
Depending on your issues, sit-ups may be a no go at the moment.  If so, just leave them for a little while.
Lunges - nice long stride, get balanced on the front foot then let the rear knee bend and drop towards the floor.  Let it kiss the floor gently then drive up out of the lunge using the front leg.  Will help open up the hip-flexors as well as giving the legs some work.
Squats - download the air squat vids off CF.com and make sure you are doing them right.  At present your major quality point is maintaiing the lumbar curve and not allowing your butt to tuck under at the bottom of the squat.

Once 5 rounds of 5 become EASY, increase to 5 rounds of 6.  Rinse, lather and repeat.

This next point relates both to the warm-up above and further skill work below.  What we are trying to do is avoid sending your back into spasm and sending you to bed for a few days.  If in doubt, less is more and if the next morning brings no symptoms, sneak in a little more that day.  Because of the relatively low intensity you should be able to do this everyday.  A strategic withdrawal will let you live to train another day.  Pay particular attention whenever you add a new drill into your mix.

Next step, buy yourself a 7’ length of PVC pipe or a broomstick and start working on your deadlift, squat and press form.  Download all the vids on CF.com relating to these drills, watch them a couple times then attempt to imitate.  Can be useful to have someone watch you and compare your form to that displayed in the vid.  Even better, if you can video it and post it up so we can check it out.

Whilst unexciting, I would suggest that you stick with this level of intensity until you have the movements down and have your warm-up up to 5 rounds of 8 or so.  We are laying a foundation for your future here.  Don’t rush things!

Hit up this thread if you have any more questions.

Cheers, kempie

thanks!
i have worked out about 3 times…taking it slow…every other day or so…trying to get a baseline…pretty sore today…somewhere between bad sore and good sore.  thanks for the tips!  i will keep posting…keep the tips comming if you have more!
thanks!

I’m a massage therapist and I’ve worked with a lot of people with this problem.  Let me say right off that you are way ahead of the game in realizing that fitness is the only way out of this mess.  No magic fix here, I’m afraid.  I would like to add that, in addition to good core strength and a rock solid posterior chain, you will want to get absolutely religious about flexibility and range of motion.  One reason I love Crossfit is because it trains flexibility along with strength.  Still, I find that my body is a lot happier when I work in a consistent stretching routine.  The best stretching is after a workout when you are warm.  Stretch gently, right up to your edge but don’t push into pain as this could cause muscle spasm and if you really overdo it you could begin to stretch ligaments which will actually create more weakness and disfunction.  Every back problem I’ve seen has involved limited range of motion especially in the hamstrings.  Good hamstring flexibility will improve your form in the squat anyway so you can’t lose there.