How Joel fixed his back pain and hit Powerlifting PRs in 4 months.
Powerlifting is a demanding sport that is not easy on the body at the best of times. Most issues you will run into will require some adjustments in load and maybe a visit or two to a physical therapist or massage therapist.
But sometimes, that’s not quite enough.
In this case study, I delve into the 4-month training program of a powerlifter named Joel.
He and I worked together in my 1-on-1 coaching program named the Platform-Ready Blueprint (formerly Momentum Program) and took him from missing multiple PRs on his squat due to upper back pain to a 40 lb PR on his squat at over 200kg.
To keep things approachable, I’m going to break things down into intake/getting started and follow that with a month-by-month breakdown of exactly what we did to progress him from not being able to squat/deadlift heavy to hitting a new all-time PR on his squat with no pain.
The Athlete’s Challenge
Meet Joel, a dedicated powerlifter who began experiencing persistent upper back pain during his training sessions. The discomfort was most pronounced during deadlifts and squats and would come and go. He had tried physios, massage therapists, special exercises, foam rolling and stretching but with no lasting relief.
On top of that, he had missed previous PR attempts on his primary lower body lifts due to the pain holding him back.
When we first got started, it became clear that Joel had 2 primary limitations that prevented him from using correct technique:
- VERY stiff lats, primarily from over extending his back when he would brace (instead of keeping a more stacked position).
- A lack of hip internal rotation on the left side. His left back was reliably more tender than the left, so we focused more on this later into the training.
You can see in his deadlift, he is VERY extended. In the case study video, you can also see his squat involves breaking at the hips to initiate the squat which results in a big extension of the spine before he’s able to go down. Both of which will put a lot of additional compression on the upper back.
Below is an example of the “overdriving” technique he was using in a more exaggerated demonstration. If you’re focused on “keeping your back straight” instead of creating stability in your wedge, this is probably you.
Month 1/4:
Going into the first month after we had done an assessment to find the issues described above, our focus points for the training were on:
- Restoring a more “neutral” ribcage position to allow him to use his abs and hips more consistently in his squat and deadlift
- Opening up more “space” in his upper back to break up some of the tension in his lats
- Teaching proper bracing technique
Rehab/Mobility Plan:
For a detailed breakdown of the mobility plan including demonstration videos, click the button below to join my free Platform-Ready Community. You’ll also get access to 50+ free csae studies, programs and powerlifting coaching events.
I assigned a daily mobility practice of:
- Hemibridge with Reach to give him an easy way to feel his back stretch out. I’m a huge fan of this drill for chronic “rib lifters”
- Adductor Pullbacks with the left leg on the top side to start to work on building more hip internal rotation.
Lifting Program Focus Points:
- Squat: 2 lower body days per week, focusing on
- Safety Bar Squats: allowing him to squat with less demand on hip/shoulder mobility due to the load and hands being in front of him
- Zercher squats: similar to the above, along with getting “harder” if he lost his brace.
- Deadlift:
- Forward Band Deadlifts to teach Joel how to pack his lats “down” towards his hips instead of retracting his shoulder blades. This allowed him to do some deadlifting while feeling his abs and lats work together… not either-or.
- Cable Pullthroughs to develop the hip musculature while “punishing” spinal movement. If you extend your spine instead of your hips with these, you fall over. Simple as that. The more your movements can reward good technique, the faster the learning is.
Month 2/4:
By the end of the first month, Joel was largely pain free again and could feel his abs through his main movements. We continued to build volume with higher rep sets (which would serve us later in month 4 when we tapered) and incorporated specific technique drills to help fill any gaps we were seeing with the main lower body lifts while moving to more direct mobility work to continue to build more range of motion in the lats.
Rehab/Mobility Plan:
- All 4’s Belly Lift to emphasize more “ribs down” as with the hemibridge, but with more ab contraction
- Adductor Pullbacks with the left leg on the top side to start to work on building more hip internal rotation.
Lifting Program Focus Points:
- Squat: Continue to build the SSB and Zercher Squat, pushing for rep PRs without breaking technique. We used his ability to feel his abs as a limiter with these loads week over week.
- Deadlift: beginning to bridge towards more standard 2-day per week deadlift work via
- DB RDLs replacing one day’s worth of pullthroughs. These are an excellent movement to build a clean hip hinge motion. For someone who traditionally overextends, we focused on keeping the DBs close to Joel’s legs (not out in front). If you are someone who tends to round out a lot in your deadlift, you can let the DBs move out in front of you more to encourage more extension
- Belt Squat Wedge Drill: To teach him how to feel his abs while dropping his hips into a stronger start position for his deadlift.
Month 3/4: Bridge Block
At this point, the bar weights we were doing on DB RDLs, SSB squats and Zerchers were closely resembling what Joel would normally train with on his primary movements and still without pain, so we began to bridge towards his primary lifts again.
Rehab/Mobility Plan:
- Continuing with the adductor pullbacks as a maintenance item
- Short Seated Breathing to further increase the difficulty of the flexion focused drills. This is VERY hard compared to a belly lift and initially caused some ab cramping.
Lifting Program Focus Points:
- Squat:
- Primary squat day: high bar squats to see how his body responded to back squats again before moving to low bar in month 4.
- Secondary Day: Reverse SSB Squats: to build the hips and make it VERY hard to overextend in the squat
- Accessory: pushing most of his quad volume with split squats to encourage the legs get hammered without too much back volume.
- Deadlift:
- Coan Deadlifts for a volume day – by controlling the eccentric, we got many of the benefits you would see from a DB RDL but with a movement more specific to the competition deadlift.
- Competition (sumo) deadlift on his primary day, ramping loads, adding 10 lbs per set until a top set was reached. This technique is a great way to ensure a great training effect but by having the top set after a lot of volume, you can prevent overshooting early in the block.
Month 4/4: Peak/Test
At this point, Joel’s training was looking pretty “normal” again, so we elected to do an AMRAP test @ 90% of his old max on the squat. He hit a new 5-rep PR with 445 lbs at the end of this block which was a 40-lb PR and without any pain afterwards.
Rehab/Mobility Plan: maintenance.
Lifting Program Focus Points:
See the bottom of this article for notes on the sets/reps we used for Joel’s peak.
- Squat:
- Primary day: low bar squat starting @ 75% and building to a 90% AMRAP over the course of the block
- Secondary day: continue to build his strength in the reverse SSB squat
- Deadlift:
- Primary: Pyramids on hybrid deadlifts, as with block 3, just with more weight.
- Accessory: phase out accessory work to make room for more primary work focus. This allowed a bit more recovery resources available for him where he was able to show up fresher to the squat focused sessions on the block.
Joel hit a new PR on his bench as well in this block of training, but it’s outside the scope of this article.
The biggest takeaway that we had for this process was identifying objective measures for improvement (degrees of hip internal rotation) and then ensuring that a focus was made to having them actually correlate to changes in technique in the lifts as well as an improvement in symptoms. It’s all well and good that some exercise increased your mobility, but if you don’t lift any different… who cares?
Bonus: Want to Know How Strong You Need to Be?
I created a free guide just for first-time competitors. I analyzed tons of local meet results to show you:
- What kind of numbers are competitive at your bodyweight
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You can get a copy of this guide completely for free along with 50+ other powerlifting resources by clicking below
Good luck on your first meet. And remember: no one ever regrets stepping onto the platform. You’ve got this. 💪
— Matt
Bonus 2: Joel’s Program
You can get a free copy of not just the rehab demos and programming notes, but also Joel’s training log to see how we progressed his main lifts and accessories over the phases by joining my Platform-Ready Community (for free).
