Just When You Think Things Are Going Well...

As much as I have written about sprained ankles and knees, pulled hamstrings, and things like that, I’m convinced that the worst possible sports injury on this level is any type of lower back injury. When you hurt your back, the pain and limitations are not just restricted to that area. It's just as difficult to bend over and pick something up as it is to get your legs to move where you want them to go or to reach up to grab something from a shelf. If there is any truth in back pain being hereditary, I probably have the bad back gene. I have heard all the stories of my Dad and his brothers comparing notes on their bad backs over the years, and every once in a while my brother and I have suffered back spasms as well. Of course, this might have more to do with the fact that we all have participated in athletics and some degree of manual labor of the years than genetics, but either way it is a common trait that we all share.

One of the great things about being a kid is that all kids are basically rubber band men. Your body seems fully elastic, and can contort in ways that don’t even seem humanly possible as an adult. Rolled ankles and twisted knees have no effect. You can play all day long, come back the next day without any muscle soreness or stiffness, and do it all over again. I remember suffering my 1st “back spasm” when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was on a travel basketball team, and we had a weekend tournament where games were taking place at multiple sites across a particular county. That weekend was the 1st time that I had to come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t an “invincible” kid anymore. I was in fact human. We had been scheduled to play 3 games that day: 1 in the morning, 1 around noon, and the last 1 later in the afternoon. During the 2nd game, I must have done something to tweak my lower back, but being the impervious to pain kid that I was I couldn’t pinpoint an exact instance when it happened. Nevertheless, riding in the car on the way to game 3 of the day caused my back to tighten up, and so I had suffered my 1st sports-related back injury.

The worst back injury I ever had happened during my freshman year in high school. During a basketball game against DeMatha, I stupidly stood in to take a charge in the 4th quarter when we were already down by 20 points. I got the call, but as I hit the floor I immediately felt my back tighten up. That game was only about midway through the season, but the injury lingered for another 2 months or so until the season was finished. There were many days I would miss practice to give my back an extra day of rest in order to be ready on game days, my teammates and coaches nicknamed me “Charles Barkley” (and not for the way I played), and for the rest of the year I wore 1 of those back braces/supports that you usually only see middle-aged dads and guys moving furniture for a living wear.

The uniform of the 45 year old man.

Since then, I have suffered slight back spasms every once in a while, but nothing as severe as that high school injury, but this weekend I felt a slight pull in my lower back after catching a pass near the goal line, and trying (unsuccessfully) to tight-rope walk my way into the end zone. I had some tightness in my back the rest of that day, but it didn’t prevent me from playing basketball the next morning (albeit not going full-bore). Fast forward to this morning when I felt a shooting pain in my lower back as I was sitting at my desk at work...once again, sitting seems to be the worst thing you can possible do if you are having back spasms. The pain was so sharp, that I actually started to sweat, and as I’m writing this I have to position myself in a way that looks like a Louisville slugger has been shoved up my keister. So anyway, count me out from the gym for at least a day or 2 as I hope to avoid any further setbacks. Back pain…such a pain in the ass.

Danger!