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There's a portion in Mel C. Siff's Facts & Fallacies of Fitness, on page 104, with this title. Throughout it, he lists various studies and their findings in regards to various back-related issues associated with weight training.
The intro, before he begins posting studies, is five paragraphs long. In it he points out the common misconception that squatting, deadlifting, and olylifting is harmful for the back, while injury and back pain is more common in the general public and throughout other sports.
He goes on to say that "...The failure of any bodily structure to adapt to progressively applied stresses would be unusual, since the body is an adaptive organism and the adaptation of muscles, bones and other structures to physical loading is well known...Radiographic studies have certainly shown increases in bone density...and especially in the superficial aspects of the vertebral bones adjacent to any discs which may have narrowed..."
In the last paragraph he adds "...geometric changes in the shape of the disc that are noted in some radiographic studies of the spine, may well be a perfectly logical biological adaptation to control the distribution and dissipation of sustained and transient ballistic spinal loading..."
What does all this mean? Well, this excerpt, along with the study following, seem to say that people with disc bulges in the lumbar spine may not, in fact, be an abnormality in the lifting world. Rather, they're of the norm, since external mechanical loading of the spine leads to narrowing of the discs, which allows them to bulge posterolaterally. Despite these bulges, there are no harmful changes in intradiscal pressure or longitudinal stress along the axis of the spine.
This, to me, says that I'm more than okay to get back into lifting, provided I feel no pain. Seems like my bulges may have been normal all along. I figured I'd post this for anyone else who may be concerned about training with lower-lumbar injuries (specifically L3-L4 and below), because it goes to show that the "disorder" may in fact be natural in some trainees.
The intro, before he begins posting studies, is five paragraphs long. In it he points out the common misconception that squatting, deadlifting, and olylifting is harmful for the back, while injury and back pain is more common in the general public and throughout other sports.
He goes on to say that "...The failure of any bodily structure to adapt to progressively applied stresses would be unusual, since the body is an adaptive organism and the adaptation of muscles, bones and other structures to physical loading is well known...Radiographic studies have certainly shown increases in bone density...and especially in the superficial aspects of the vertebral bones adjacent to any discs which may have narrowed..."
In the last paragraph he adds "...geometric changes in the shape of the disc that are noted in some radiographic studies of the spine, may well be a perfectly logical biological adaptation to control the distribution and dissipation of sustained and transient ballistic spinal loading..."
What does all this mean? Well, this excerpt, along with the study following, seem to say that people with disc bulges in the lumbar spine may not, in fact, be an abnormality in the lifting world. Rather, they're of the norm, since external mechanical loading of the spine leads to narrowing of the discs, which allows them to bulge posterolaterally. Despite these bulges, there are no harmful changes in intradiscal pressure or longitudinal stress along the axis of the spine.
This, to me, says that I'm more than okay to get back into lifting, provided I feel no pain. Seems like my bulges may have been normal all along. I figured I'd post this for anyone else who may be concerned about training with lower-lumbar injuries (specifically L3-L4 and below), because it goes to show that the "disorder" may in fact be natural in some trainees.
