You tweaked your back on a deadlift.
Maybe it was a heavy set, maybe it was just a bad rep at the end of a workout when you were already tired.
You rested, it calmed down, you went back to training, and it happened again.
Or maybe it’s not even a specific injury. It’s just a persistent ache that shows up every time you pull from the floor, every time you run, every time you load a barbell in a hinged position.
You’ve been told to brace harder, keep your chest up, and don’t round your back. You’ve watched the cues. You’ve tried to apply them.
And it still hurts.
Here’s the thing: back pain in CrossFit athletes and weightlifters is almost never just a back problem.
The back is where you feel it, but the back is usually the victim, not the culprit.
Understanding that distinction is what changes everything.
The First Question We Ask
Before we look at anything else, we want to know exactly what movement caused this.
Was it a deadlift? A clean or clean pull? Running? Each one tells us something different about where to look.
With running, the most common driver of back pain is a lack of effective hip extension. If an athlete isn’t fully extending through the hip and loading the glute with each stride, the lower back steps in to compensate. Over thousands of steps, that adds up fast.
With deadlifts and cleans, we see two patterns constantly: athletes who are trying to clean-pull a deadlift, and athletes who are trying to deadlift a clean pull. These are different movement demands, and mixing up the mechanics of one with the other puts the lower back in positions it wasn’t designed to sustain under load.
And across all three movements, one of the most common physical findings we see is limited hip internal rotation mobility. When the hip can’t rotate internally as needed, the pelvis compensates by tilting, and the lower back rounds prematurely to make up the difference. That rounding under load is where injuries happen, and where chronic pain lives.
What We’re Actually Testing
A thorough assessment of lower back pain in a lifting athlete looks at several things:
Hip internal rotation mobility is almost always the first place we go. Restrictions here are one of the most reliable predictors of lower back compensation patterns in deadlift and hinge movements. When the hip can’t move freely, the lumbar spine picks up the slack — and the lumbar spine was not built to be a primary mover under heavy load.
Hip extension strength and mechanics, specifically hamstring and glute function, tell us whether the posterior chain is actually doing its job.
A weak glute is one of the most common findings we see in athletes with chronic back pain. When the glute underperforms, the hamstring overworks, and eventually the lower back steps in as the primary extensor. That’s a losing strategy at any weight.
Lower back capacity is something we test directly with a Sorensen hold, which is a back extension isometric hold that should be sustainable for two minutes in a healthy, trained athlete.
Most people with chronic back pain can’t get close to that. It tells us the lower back is not just mechanically compromised; it’s also underconditioned for what it’s being asked to do.
From there, we’re also looking at overall hamstring and glute strength, movement patterns under load, and how the athlete organizes their spine when fatigue sets in, because that’s usually when things break down.
→ Book your free Discovery Visit — Goodyear, AZ → Speak with a PT if you want to talk it through first → Learn more about how we treat back pain and weightlifting injuries
The Two Presentations We See Most
Just like with shoulder pain, back pain in lifting athletes tends to fall into two distinct categories, and the treatment approach is completely different for each.
The stiff athlete typically has restricted hip internal rotation that causes the back to round prematurely in the pull.
Because the hip can’t move freely, the body compensates by using the lumbar spine as a hinge, and the lower back fatigues faster because the hip extensors aren’t contributing the way they should.
Treatment here starts with restoring hip mobility, working through the specific rotation restrictions we find, and then rebuilding the movement pattern from the ground up with the hip doing its actual job.
Once the hip is moving, athletes are often surprised at how much easier it is to hold a neutral spine, because the mechanics actually allow it now.
The hypermobile athlete has the opposite problem.
They have more than enough range, but they tend to overextend through the lower back rather than hinging at the hip.
That hyperextension creates compression on the posterior structures of the lumbar spine, facets, discs, the surrounding soft tissue, and that compression is what generates pain.
For this athlete, the priority is twofold: learning where neutral actually is for their spine (because hypermobile athletes often have no idea, extended feels normal to them), and building stability at the hip and lower back so they can control the range they have.
Hip stability work, anti-extension core training, and relearning the hinge pattern with proper loading are the foundation here.
What both athletes share is this: the lower back can never be too strong.
Regardless of what’s driving the pain, improving the capacity of the posterior chain, hips, hamstrings, and lower back, is part of every plan we build. The goal isn’t just to fix what’s broken.
It’s to build a back that’s resilient enough to handle heavy training for the long haul.
Why “Just Brace Harder” Doesn’t Work
Cueing is useful. But cueing can’t override a mobility restriction, and it can’t substitute for strength that isn’t there yet.
If your hip internal rotation is limited, telling yourself to keep your chest up doesn’t change the mechanical reality that your pelvis is going to tilt when you pull from the floor. If your glute isn’t activating effectively, bracing your core harder doesn’t make the glute fire. The cue addresses the symptom of the movement fault, it doesn’t fix the fault itself.
This is why athletes can watch every technique video available, apply every cue they’ve been given, and still keep getting hurt. The information isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete without addressing what’s actually limiting the movement in the first place.
How Long Does It Take to Fix?
For most lifting athletes with chronic back pain, meaningful improvement comes quickly once the root cause is identified, usually within the first few sessions. Full resolution, where you’re pulling at full capacity without modification and without the pain returning, typically takes 6-10 weeks, depending on how long the issue has been building and which presentation you’re dealing with.
What we can tell you is that every week you spend in the rest-and-return cycle is a week the underlying issue gets more ingrained.
The movement patterns get more compensatory. The posterior chain gets weaker relative to what you’re asking it to do. The longer it goes, the more work it takes to unwind.
Your Back Isn’t the Problem, But It Does Need Attention
Back pain from deadlifts or cleans is one of the most fixable issues we see at Continuous Motion PT, when it’s approached correctly. The athletes who struggle with it for years are almost always the ones who kept treating the back instead of the hip, or who rested instead of rebuilding.
You don’t have to keep pulling around this. A proper evaluation will tell you exactly what’s driving it, and from there, the path forward is clear.
Ready to find out what’s actually causing your back pain?
We offer a free 20-minute Discovery Visit where you can speak directly with a Doctor of Physical Therapy about what’s going on and whether CMPT is the right fit.
→ Book your free Discovery Visit — Goodyear, AZ → Speak with a PT if you want to talk it through first → Learn more about how we treat back pain and weightlifting injuries
