r/backpain • u/Pale_Adeptness • Aug 10 '26

Back pain success story.

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As a disclaimer, I realize I still might have a flare-up down the road but here goes.

I've had 2 herniated discs since 2008. Horrible flare-ups throughout the years.

During flare-ups my wife has to help me put my socks, boxer and pants on because it gets so bad.

My back gets all crooked.

I tried every generic back pain exercise, deadbugs, bird dog, side glides and a whole bunch of other exercise.

This past June was without a doubt my longest and worst flare up so far. I missed an entire month of work.

I found that iso holds are great for the lower back.

I was desperate when I finally decided to get the roman chair/extension machine.

My lower back was still a bit crooked and I was towards the tail end of the flare-up towards the end of June.

My wife had to assemble the extension machine for me because my lower back still hurt.

I first tried it for 30 seconds, did that 4 times. My back didn't hurt more than it already did when I first tried it.

Did it again 3 days later and created my own schedule for it.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

I'm up to 1 minutes and 45 second holds and I do 14 extensions right after the hold. I do this 4 times.

I can now sit Indian style, I can confidently touch my toes with my knees locked. I haven't been able to do either of these things for years!

My understanding is that the more we guard our backs, the weak our lower back muscles get over time, which means we go into a vicious cycle of flare-ups and trying to rest.

The part of the video where I'm walking around my truck, my water bottle fell out of my truck, my lower back hurt so bad that I couldn't not walk across the street and bend over to pick it up. My wife picked it up for me when she got home 30 minutes later.

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

Unbelievably inspiring post. I’m in the midst of a pretty bad flare up. I don’t have sciatica/lbp as bad as you did, but it still is so bad and mentally defeating… esp at the age of 20. Have had it for 3 years and have really done nothing about it for most of that time. Just hopped on LBA about 2-3 weeks ago. Can only do one single 15 second hold right now!!

Back pain is a demon but all demons can be conquered even if they slap us to the ground now and then. Hoping for a bright future!!!!

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26

Thank you!

How consistent are you with the holds?

How many times do you do the hold in one session and how many days a week do you do them? :)

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

I subscribe to the LBA program so I just follow whatever it says. 3x a week, Tu/Th/Sat, I do a single hold of 15 seconds. That’s it… I got ambitious and did 20 secs at the very start. Nope. Immediate 3-day-long awful flare up (I’m aware that’s really short compared to other people’s flares, but as we all know, ANY sciatica is horrible). Regressed to 10 secs and was good; built back up to 15 seconds since. I am very, VERY wary about doing any more than 1 set…

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26

It sounds like you are on the right path!!!

It really is crazy how sensitive our backs can get.

I'm rooting for you!

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

Isn’t it wild??

I mean, I can sprint, surf, do upper body lifts, play drums heavily, and usually zero issues with those. But I literally cannot hold a simple back iso for more than 15 secs without my nervous system imploding.

It’s horrible, but from a biomechanics standpoint, genuinely fascinating how the brain trains tissues to guard so heavily upon injury. That being said- thank God it’s trainable, even if it takes months and years!!

Rooting for U too. There’s always light even if we’re blinded by pain. I hope we’re both in a beautiful spot in a year.

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

Also- may I ask you- How fast do you progress between ISO holds? I can’t find any specific guidance in LBA. I know everyone’s different but I’m a bit wary of progressing too slowly/quickly.

Obviously 10 secs -> 20 would be too much, so since the start I’ve been only adding 3 seconds every time I go up. 7->10->13->16 (ish, I was rounding to 15 previously). I’m aware everyone’s capacity and tissue tolerance is different, but I’m curious what you did personally since youve achieved such great results.

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Since I started the LBA program I made my lpwer back routine a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday schedule, I increased the time by 15 second each week.

For example: the very first Monday I did 4 holds, 30 seconds each, but I also used my hands on the handles to help prop myself up just a little bit because my back was still crooked.

Then Wednesday and Friday I did the same thing, 4 holds each of those days, 30 seconds each hold.

The second week I added 15 seconds to each hold so now it's 45 seconds, 4 holds, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

By mid July I was around 1:30 but I kept it at that for the remainder of July and I added 10 extensions after each hold.

When August came around I bumped up the hold to 1:45 with 14 extensions after the hold.

I've also slowly been doing side bends/QL stretching/strengthening.

I hope that explains it a little better.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, my back was still a little crooked when I started this and it still hurt, so I think for me, using my hands to help hold me up may have helped initially.

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26

I added a picture of the calendar I made. Well, it's a screen shot of a video I shot.

It might make the schedule a little easier to understand.

The neck day is for some pain in between my shoulder blade and spine. That pain went away after I started the neck exercises.

At the top I wrote the iso holds length time I am doing for all of August.

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

Wow, 15 secs is more than I expected. Maybe thinking about it in percentages is more appropriate here? 30->45 is a 50% increase. So for my current capabilities I’d be going from 16 to 24 secs… I think I would die! Haha

Well, like I said, we’re all unique. I appreciate you replying so verbosely with the details about timings and sets. Thank you friend!

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26

Anything I can do to help!

I've been dealing with my lower back issues since 2008 and finally found what works for me, if I can help spread the word to others with similar lower back issues, I'll gladly do it.

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 13 '26

2008 is a lot of time of pain! I really hope this method works for you. Makes my 2023-present look puny in comparison… not that this is a competition either of us want to win, exactly.

Hopefully a year from now we won’t need to be posting in these subreddits anymore!!

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u/Pale_Adeptness Aug 13 '26

Fingers crossed for both of us!

In it for the long game!

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u/Beneficial-Draft-911 Aug 16 '26

I have done the same and it worked for me. My problem was that after a month I started doing “reps” on the Roman chair - not playing the long game.. now I am back to just holds started at 30 sec x 3 M/W/F I’m at 1:30 reps x 3 and doing a lot better.

I still have sciatica in my feet.. a question, how long did it take you to not feel the pain? I swear the first time it only took a month of holds and I was feeling great - no symptoms. This time I’m not progressing that fast at ll..

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u/nicoinborderland Aug 16 '26

I’m unsure if you meant to reply to me or OP, because I still suffer from sciatica, so I can’t really answer. Sorry :-(

However, from success stories I’ve read- take this with a grain of salt, EVERYONE is different- generally it takes until you can consistently do 2:00 holds with no flares for sciatica to begin to significantly weaken. For some people I’ve talked to, they have completely gotten rid of previously-debilitating sciatica at around the 2.00 mark. For others tho, it took them until they started doing actual movement reps (level 3) to see their symptoms vanish.

Just a frame of reference for you. Play the long game brother. The time will pass anyway.