Trim feedback lower back pain

[FreqFlier]

My tip: try a BPW with a steel plate

@Kikabock - check out Xdeep Zen Deluxe, potentially with ditchable weight pockets and trim weight pockets too. Shape and positioning of that wing (bladder?) under the tank is very interesting. Worth to check it out. My wife loves it.

 

[NitroxSam]

Good question— scans show the attached and recommendation is pt. Which I’m going to resume full time now! View attachment 819830

Retired PT here. Treated alot of backs, including my own over the last 26 years. I've found a good deal of success using an inversion table. So much so that I have one in my home, and use it almost daily to maintain my back. It simply provides a very gentle, passive traction that opens up the vertebral spaces and can relieve pressure on the involved nerve roots. My issue is at L4/5 also, and the inversion table is helping me to postpone surgery, and stay diving. Maximizing fitness, with emphasis on CORE strengthening is also desireable. However, it's important to know what cause/increases your pain so you don't make it worse. A good manual spinal or Mackenzie trained therapist would probably help you. Remember, at the end of the day you want to be able to treat/ maintain yourself. Make sure whatever therapist you work with is teaching you, not simply "doing it to you". I always try to get my patients independent with performing their therapy procedures, so they can stay out of the PT clinic and away from hospitals fir as long as possible.

 

[VikingDives]

View attachment 819639View attachment 819640View attachment 819641View attachment 819642I’m a recreational warm water diver 1 tank and use a scubapro go bcd with integrated weights. I have chronic lower back pain and this recent trip to Bonaire was tough. I do shore dives but valet style with husband carrying my gear into the water and I gear up there (lucky me). I would love feedback on my trim in trying to determine if I need to upgrade my gear to better support by back, work on my trim or just do core strength exercises. Any feedback is welcome.

What I see:

• Trim looks good from the pictures.
• The tank looks like it's placed too low.

Thoughts:

• A shorty is naturally going to make your core more buoyant. Consider a full wetsuit.
  • This is probably why your knees look like they're dropping in a couple of the pictures. If you're fighting to stay in trim things get harder on your back.
• 18 lbs doesn't seem too heavy to me, based on your description. Body composition is more of a factor than absolute weight, but in general, women need more weight than men because they have more body fat.

Questions:

• Can you hold a horizontal hover without kicking or using your hands?
• Is your back pain muscular and at your hips, or is it pain from the disc?
• Are your fins positive, neutral, or negative?

 

[grantmac]

I'm going to pile on the BP/W conversation (as I did before).

But also say that an inversion table combined with some easy core work changed my father's life.

 

[RobPNW]

My solution for lower back pain is morning warm up every day. 150 crunches, neck stretching, "cat-dog" (on your 4, lift straight hand and leg diagonally, left hand with right leg, right hand with left leg, a dozen times). Before going to bed, I do the 1st half from this yoga class. When diving, I pay attention to keep my back straight and never, ever twist my upper body with the tank on my back. That's it.

150 crunched would GIVE me back pain LOL.

 

[tarponchik]

Not trying to highjack the talk, but while reading posts here, I came up with a question of weight belt vs integrated.

A weight belt rests on the hips and can't add any load on the back. Integrated weights are in the BCD and should pass the load on on the back via the shoulder straps. True or false?

 

[MidOH]

My back pain can be delayed by days.

In your case, I'd blame the airplane or airport hell.

When I book 1st class my back feels fine.

 

[Imla]

Not trying to highjack the talk, but while reading posts here, I came up with a question of weight belt vs integrated.

A weight belt rests on the hips and can't add any load on the back. Integrated weights are in the BCD and should pass the load on on the back via the shoulder straps. True or false?

This depends on the person. I am a curvy girl and a weightbelt will NEVER rest on my hips. Hip to waist ratio is "wrong" and will cause the weightbelt to slide to the waistsection and hang mostly in the front and annoy. (Or be uncomfortably tight on the hips limiting mobility)
I will strip weights to the plate, tankbands, thread them on the right side waistwebbing, put them in thigh pockets or boltsnap them to any d-ring suitable before I will consider a weightbelt.

 

[crofrog]

Not trying to highjack the talk, but while reading posts here, I came up with a question of weight belt vs integrated.

A weight belt rests on the hips and can't add any load on the back. Integrated weights are in the BCD and should pass the load on on the back via the shoulder straps. True or false?

Once you're flat in the water think about where that weight is pulling... The shoulder straps barely do anything once you're underwater because you're just sort of hanging in the harness

I stole this photo from: Mastering Proper Trim - Alert Diver Magazine | DAN Europe

All the red forces are negitively bouyant, weights, backplate, regulators. The blue forces are positively bouyant, bottom of tank (torwards end of dive, center of the wing, center of the diver. The trick is to get all of those forces to counter act each other so that when you're just sitting in the water you can be perfectly still, and maintain that trim position. you can move your arms and legs around to dynamically change trim while underwater and you can move the height of the backplate, weights, and tank before you get in the water, and play with different fins to help balance it all out.

If the rig isn't well trimed, you as a diver can trim it, it'll just be more work than it could be under water.

But anyhow, to answer your question think about which way gravity is pulling (down), so unlike when you're standing the weight for a lot of people on a weight belt slides up more towards their stomach, and the shoulder straps aren't really doing anything because your'e hanging in the rig by the wasit strap or cummerbund.


@Kikabock look at where her tank is relative to where yours is. I really think that's were I'd start.

 

[tarponchik]

Once you're flat in the water think about where that weight is pulling...

Once I am in the water I do not care. Obviously my question referred to standing/walking on land/boat.