WAG Is it normal to have to ice your back after practice?

[AgingHippie]

DD is an 11 year old L7. She has been icing her back pretty regularly after practice. She says it doesn't hurt the day after just during an after practice. I asked her why she didn't say anything before and she said it just hurts all the time so why bother complaining about it. So very conflicting information. Is this just part of the deal when you get to higher levels? Should I be using a heating pad instead?

 

[thefellowsmom]

Take her to the doctor now. Backs are not to be messed with. It could be many things, some serious some not so much. No need to panic, but you don't want to wait. Good luck!

 

[sce]

Not normal. Get her back checked out.

 

[Aussie_coach]

No it is not normal. Take her to see a physiotherapist.

 

[profmom]

Ask around the gym to find out who in your area's orthopedic practices is good with gymnasts' backs. We were in your shoes about a year and a half ago, and seeing the wrong guy first literally added months to my daughter's recovery time. You want someone who's going to take it seriously and pursue a diagnosis aggressively if there is not a clear one from the first set of X rays. (She was initially told stress reaction/possible stress fracture, when in fact the problem was instability and weakness in the small muscles that support and align the spine.)

 

[Seeker]

Ask her where it hurts. Is it her spine? Muscles along one side? Equal pain on both sides? It matters how & where it hurts because that may help you determine what sort of Dr to pursue. If it is muscular, PT could help a lot as it can strengthen weak areas and teach her to engage the proper muscles at the right time. If it is pain in her spine, that's a totally different thing.

 

[skschlag]

Take her in. This is not normal. And really, most likely they will run tests. DS had to have xrays/MRIs on his a year and a half ago. The ortho was sure it was fractured, but MRI was clear. his did turn out to be muscular, but I will never regret getting the tests done. HE spent months on muscle relaxers and lidocaine patches until we found the therapy that fixed it for him, and now, no more pain. A girl at our gym did not get it checked but went straight to therapy. Hers ended up being fractured and she is now dealing with that.

With backs it is hard to tel without the tests, so I would definitely get it checked out.

 

[duyetanh]

It is so hard because our girls are so used to dealing with pain, they might just think it is the norm. I will admit my kid is Uber sensitive to telling me whenever she has pain anywhere or notices an area feeling different. I am perhaps a bad parent because I have made her this way....because I want her to really know her body and when it changes! This does not mean I rush her to Dr every time something is different. But I like her to know and to share so we can talk about it. I also have seen two girls at her gym have to quit because of back issues so the back makes me very nervous. And both girls met their demise on beam in terms of the back...the bwo and bhs pushed their backs to the point of no return. For your dd it could be muscular...Aly Raisman iced her back every night...but you just don't mess around with the back. Especially because she was in bwo hell earlier in the season. Hie thee to the Dr, pronto.

 

[e'smum]

definitely get it checked out. one of the girls on my dd's team has issues with her back. she was in a hard brace for several months and she still has issues. it was overuse of the muscles from doing BWO/BHS. doing a BWO hurts so now she doesn't do them. she can do anything forward with no issues. and she does a BLO in her floor routine vs. a BT b/c of her back. it's a beautiful BLO

 

[karenity]

I would also recommend getting this checked out immediately by a doctor. I don't mess around with the back - my son had a problem about 2 years ago turned out to be very minor and was treatable with physical therapy. But we had the tests run to ensure it wasn't anything serious. In his case it was partially caused by conditioning 4 boys getting very strong in the front part of their torso but not equally strong on their back so he did a lot of conditioning to strengthen his back it worked.

 

[cadybearsmommy]

How long has it been going on? Less than a week, it might just be muscle strain. If it has persisted for weeks or months, it could be something else.

Has she been doing a lot of beam back walkovers? Those are killer on the back. Dd was having some minor back discomfort a couple of weeks ago, she would ice it for a couple of days and it would be fine but then it would come back. I was concerned, so I spoke to her coach about it and she took a look at DD's BWO and said she was hinging at a certain part of her back and that could be the problem. She worked with dd on doing the BWO's using her shoulder flexibility and upper back more so she wasn't relying on her lower back so much. DD picked it up pretty quickly and has had NO back discomfort at all since. It might be worth looking into. Our next step would have been to see the doctor of course if modifying the technique had not helped.

Some kids just can't take the repetitive BWOs and have to start limiting them in practice, or stopping them altogether and going to BHS instead (much less stressful on the back.) I'm hoping DD gets her BHS sometime this summer and can compete it next year and we won't have another year of BWOs to deal with. Sometimes scary things like stress fractures happen if you let the back pain go on too long. Some kids need physical therapy to help with shoulder and hip flexibility to take the stress off of their back and some do PT to strengthen their back muscles.

If I were in your shoes and I thought it was BWO that was causing it I would talk to the coach about modifying the technique or switching to a skill less stressful on her back, and if it persisted at all after that I would get her immediately to a doctor. If it has already been going on for a while, get her to the doctor anyway. I hope her back feels better soon!

 

[sleeping judy]

My 12 year old was having issues with her back about a month ago that would not go away. Having had multiple friends who had fractures at this age, I got really worried and shut her down until we could get to the orthopedic. A x-ray and bone scan later, we determined it was a muscular issue and there were no fractures, old or new. She is in PT and I felt a bit alarmist but anything with back, neck or head gets an immediate shutdown from me.

 

[AgingHippie]

Sorry I haven't been back. I talked to the coach and she said DD has the perfect build for a streds fracture. Low shoulder flexibility and very strong upper body strength. She also said DD has been doing 50 to 70 BWO each beam rotation.

They are now limiting her to 10 per practice and we have an appointment on Wednesday.

 

[cadybearsmommy]

Sorry I haven't been back. I talked to the coach and she said DD has the perfect build for a streds fracture. Low shoulder flexibility and very strong upper body strength. She also said DD has been doing 50 to 70 BWO each beam rotation.

They are now limiting her to 10 per practice and we have an appointment on Wednesday.

Oh geez! Keep us updated. Hopefully it's just muscle strain and she will just need to take it easy for a while. If that's the case maybe some physical therapy to build that shoulder flexibility will help before any other issues arise.

 

[skschlag]

Sorry I haven't been back. I talked to the coach and she said DD has the perfect build for a streds fracture. Low shoulder flexibility and very strong upper body strength. She also said DD has been doing 50 to 70 BWO each beam rotation.

They are now limiting her to 10 per practice and we have an appointment on Wednesday.

When we went thru this with my son, they said NO back flexibility things until cleared. No back walkovers, nothing, until the mri was cleared. I would be extra careful

 

[duyetanh]

Excuse my language, but Jesus CHRIST. 70 per practice is insane.

 

[my4buffaloes]

Ask her where it hurts. Is it her spine? Muscles along one side? Equal pain on both sides? It matters how & where it hurts because that may help you determine what sort of Dr to pursue. If it is muscular, PT could help a lot as it can strengthen weak areas and teach her to engage the proper muscles at the right time. If it is pain in her spine, that's a totally different thing.

This isn't always so cut and dry. My son had only what appeared to be muscle pain, so we pursued the PT, chiro route. After a year of dealing with it, the result was actually a broken back. Definitely push to get X-ray and MRI if the X-ray doesn't show anything.

 

[MILgymFAM]

Sorry I haven't been back. I talked to the coach and she said DD has the perfect build for a streds fracture. Low shoulder flexibility and very strong upper body strength. She also said DD has been doing 50 to 70 BWO each beam rotation.

They are now limiting her to 10 per practice and we have an appointment on Wednesday.

My DD went through a phase where she was doing 40-60 BWO per rotation and her back was always hurting- everyday, all the time. Her coaches were dismissive and unfortunately so was her dr (just skip a week or two of practice has been her advice for every gym related issue we've had). When she stopped doing all BWOs altogether (when she quit artistic) her back felt better in a couple of weeks. I still wish the dr would've checked it out, but it seems to have worked out ok.. I'm glad she has an appointment to check on it further.

 

[AgingHippie]

I'm hoping we can skip the xray and go straight to the MRI.

I was a little surprised to hear she was doing that many BWO when I told them her back was bothering her months ago.

 

[Seeker]

This isn't always so cut and dry. My son had only what appeared to be muscle pain, so we pursued the PT, chiro route. After a year of dealing with it, the result was actually a broken back. Definitely push to get X-ray and MRI if the X-ray doesn't show anything.

Yes, I would always get an x-ray and/or MRI for a back to rule that out. But in the event of no visible fracture or structural cause for the pain, I wouldn't expect an orthopedic surgeon to offer much more assistance with recovery. I really don't know that even a standard-issue PT would be a great choice either. Many threads on CB about gymnasts struggling with recovery until they seek out someone withe experience working child/teen athletes and with gymnasts or dancers specifically if that is available. More often than not, if the ortho doesn't find a problem with the bone that will require their services (meaning surgery and/or $$$ for them), they send you packing without a whole lot of guidance of what to do to fix the actual problem.