I wonder if it is a posture issue or that my muscles are too tight/stiff/weak.

I did a lot of loop-loop, loop-loop-loop, flip-loop, waltz-loop, you get the idea. It doesn't hurt so much there and then. It's only after I started doing something else that my lower back starts to ache. Tolerable pain, but pain I can do without.

Anyone has got suggestions to prevent the ache?

Lower back stiffness/ache is a common figure skating overuse injury, and if you feel it more on one side than the other, that means you are using that side too much and developing an imbalance that could make your back go out on you (ask me how I know!). Stretch your lower back well, take some ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory, and get a massage. And force yourself to limit the number of jumps you do!

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I pinched my sciatic nerve on my landing side doing a lutz last week. It hurt a lot for the first day or two, but it's better now (aside from stretching, swimming laps helped more than anything).

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No one can give you educated advice without evaluating you first. If it is an ongoing problem, get evaluated by a physical therapist. There are many reasons for back aches. If you are hypermobile in your spine, you would want to avoid stretching. If you have hypomobility, then you need to stretch. If your alignment is off, that could also cause pain. So never go by general guidelines for back pain, because they may not apply to your body. Core strengthening is always beneficial, no matter what your specific diagnosis, but you have to start with exercises that are appropriate for your skill level.

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Actually the ache runs across the lower back. Not just one side.

rsk8d, what is hypermobility?

See the ache is annoying because they were there yesterday and today it's gone.

I call that lucky. Worse if it was still there today!

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Katz

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Hypermobility is too much movement in the joints. If there is hyermobility in a joint, a person needs extra muscle support to stabilize it. Good luck!

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EXACTLY! We use the lower back muscles a LOT in skating, so it would be amazing if they never got sore. Sore for just one day is a good sign, though!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Proper stretching before, and especially after skating can help. Also make sure you don't over excercise one part of your body. Make sure to balance things out.

Seriously, if it's going away, it sounds more like tension/overuse than anything more worriesome (- but I am not an expert and you should get it checked out by one if it is bothering you)

Are you stretching well and warming up well prior to jumping? I know my lower back aches a lot if I don't take the time to stretch well first.

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Katz

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Genreally what do people do for a warm up?

I've always been told by personal trainers to never stretch when you are "cold". Logically this would probably mean doing some light cardio off ice and then stretching before you get on, but what if when you skate the area around the rink is like a a zoo with people waiting to get on? I find that i wouldn't have the space to warm up before i get on the ice, also by the tmie i've laced up my skates twice each (because the first time never seems tight enough!) then i'll likely have cooled down again.

Ant

Bear in mind: I'm not medically trained. I'm taking this from reading on the internet, and a few vaguely related courses, which are now somewhat out of date.

But if a given practice makes me sore, soaking in a hot whirlpool bath feels wonderful. The Greenbelt Aquatics Center (Greenbelt, MD) has one they keep around 102-103 degrees F, and nice pulsing jets - I love it.

That, or stretching after the exercise will help if the muscles are still tense and/or you have exercise by-products (like lactic acid - which it is desirable to get rid of quickly, for health) built up in your muscles.

Some of us can get sore if we aren't flexible enough in somewhere, and those things get stretched suddenly when we jump. People with the opposite issue - excess flexibility, allowing joints to fully or partially dislocate (dislux) - will make the problem worse by stretching.

It's even possible to have a little of both - if something hasn't been well stretched (like my psoas and glut muscles, because I wasn't using them much, so they didn't warm up), other things (like my ligaments and joint capsules) could theoretically over-stretch when you try to stretch muscles without a proper warm-up of the particular muscles being stretched.

Some people practice jumping so much they fracture bones, especially if they haven't done strength training to cushion take-offs and landings, or are using their muscles wrong. Bone fractures can hurt too.

Chiropractors say spinal alignment issues can make people sore too.

And if your boot heel height or left-right relative insole heights are wrong, that can create spinal and muscular stresses which can make you sore too. A lot of ladies who wear high heel shoes get sore backs, as do many dancers and skaters who go up on their toes, and who are supposed to have artificially straight (or backwards bent for some skating moves) back postures. Add a little jumping to increase the stress. It's no surprise podiatrists often tell people with sore backs to reduce shoe and boot heel height. We need some heel elevation because of those silly toe picks, but I'd bet a lot of people go too far.

Your warm-up and cool-down exercises, like your other exercise, should optimally be customized to your body's needs. Most of us can not evaluate those needs without help. Certain people, like sports physical therapists, certified physical trainers, well trained performance dance (e.g., ballet, modern dance) instructors, and certified yoga instructors, are trained in such evaluations. (The boot fit thing you can play with by yourself, by adding inserts or tape into the insole.) But group exercise instruction doesn't give them enough one-on-one time to make such an individual evaluation. They need to work one-on-one.

Most skating coaches are not trained to evaluate excess joint flexibility, let alone fractures. Perhaps they should be trained to look for the warning signs, so they could refer you to someone else with the right training, but I think most aren't.

Therefore most group exercise programs (e.g. Aerobics instruction - I took a short course for instructors a few years ago) take a relatively conservative approach. They do a gradual warm-up before the exercise, which gradually increase to current full range of motion (without stretching to extend that range), move to the main exercise segments, and do a gradual cool-down, using slower motions and finally stretches to relax the muscles and flush the lactic acid out of the muscles.

Supposedly that is a fairly safe routine to follow for most people, because most people are better off stretching all their muscles a little, and they have no special issues. Such generic warm-up and cool-down routines can be found in many books and websites.

As you must know, the best figure skaters (like the best performance dancers and gymnists) are not normal people. (Physically. I'm not talking about the mental insanity component here.) They can't be, to go into the poses considered optimal. The best are at the high flexibility (hypermobility) end of the spectrum, and constantly work to become even more so. So a "Dance Kineseology" course aimed at college dance majors I took a few years back was strongly biased towards not over-stretching.

The sports PT/ATC I saw said A LOT of his customers were skaters, dancers and gymnists. Rsk8d is another sports PT, as well as a skater (and a skating coach??) so it's a fair bet she sees a lot of them too.

I think a lot of people see way too many doctors and other medical personnel, to handle minor stuff that simple exercises can fix. But you may want to decide whether there is much of a risk you could be over-stretching a ligament or joint capsule, or if one of the other things might apply. If there is, someone with the right training might be helpful in helping you evaluate whether you need modifications to the more generic warm-up and cool down routines, or whether you need to do strength training, modify your boots, and other things.

Or just go to a hot tub, or nice warm whirlpool bath. Or tell someone nice to rub your back.

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Warm up: I usually run until I've a light sheen of perspiration or until I get breathless. And then I do some plyometrics (simple side by side hops) and then I stretch.

My back is pretty flexible. I can put my leg behind me on the railing and reach back and hold my foot. A little less scary than the pearl, but probably more than a haircutter. It doesn't hurt my back when I stretch though. But if I don't stretch, my back is very tense. I can reach down and hug my legs, like my legs and upper body are side by side. I do notice that my hams are very tight lately, but I don't think it contributed much?

My back is hurting again. I skated today. Did a lot of axel tries and fell a lot.

After I got home, I stretched for about 45 min. Relaxed, slow, and comfortable stretches. I feel less tight but it still hurts.

I highly likely broke my tailbone about one or two years ago. Is it a contributory factor? The area that hurts is my lower back at the natural waist line. Oh I don't know if this is natural, but I notice I can crack my tailbone like one will crack a knuckle. That started happening only after the injury to the coccyx.

You are arching your back and extending your free leg every time you jump, both of which strain the lower back. The hamstrings and lower back are all connected, so you should benefit from some long, slow hamstring and forward bending back stretches. It definitely sounds like it would be a good idea to get checked out by a physical therapist, though.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I have lower back pain too. It was better when i skated only twice a week. My body does not seem to have enough time to recover if I skate more than that. But the amount of pain is quite manageable, so I am skating 5 days now.

My personal feeling is that bad falls that require the entire body to rebalance during landing lead to more back pain. My most severe one was when I was learning loop a year ago. I had a bad fall and in my attempt to not fall, I bend my back all the way forward too fast. I couldn't really walk for two days. When the pain became more manageable after a few days, I wanted to skate. Skated relatively ok. But I was done, it was almost impossible to get into the car due to the pain. So I stopped skating for 2 more weeks.

Stronger back muscle would help reduce the amount of extra pressure on the spine. But it is not easy to exercise back muscle and if such exercise is not done properly, it can cause back injury.

Good luck!

I find that I must stretch before I skate otherwise my lower back does get sore.

When I say stretch, I am not talking about trying to increase flexibility or range. But I do have to "wake up" all my muscles before I take to the ice.
Days of just getting on the ice and warming up by skating are past for me.

So, hamstring light stretch. Upper body gentle twists, hip flexor, calves, gluteal/hamstring/forgotten what it's called muscle in butt, aductors/abductors, quads, knee bends to get all that working. Then deeper hamstring stretches by touching toes, then hands to the ground. All very gentle & gradual stuff.

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Katz

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And equally important is the balance of strength between your back muscles and your abdominals. If your back muscles are used a lot (as they are in skating) but you aren't using the abdominal muscles directly opposing them, it will strain your back muscles and your spine. My physical therapist had me do these weird upside-down crunches to get the abdominal muscles that are just opposite my tight lower back muscles. I could feel the difference afterward!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics