Coaching/teaching with bad back advice

I don't have any advice but I am sure what you are going through sucks. I also teach SPED and you can't exactly do that from a chair. You sound like me in that you would never want to leave a program or your students in a bad situation. We make a career out of putting others ahead of ourselves which is good and noble. That's what we coaches and teachers do. But sometimes we have to put our health (be it physical or mental) ahead of our students. I have had back and neck problems from an accident years ago but nothing as serious as what your condition sounds like. I would explain to your medical provider what your wishes are and how can they help you hold off on surgrey until after the season. Maybe they can get PT involved if not already? Maybe they can give you suggestions for how you can set up your classroom and daily routine to help mitigate the pain. Good luck.

Coach, you're 37. Your heart is in the right place, but your body is telling you otherwise. You're still young enough and strong enough to manage a major surgery and recover from it. Coaching is a DAILY grind, and demanding physical work. I'm not sure what type of SPED you are in but does it require the same type of physical work as your coaching duties? Maybe the HC can have you mentor a younger guy you trust to work with your group under your tutelage allowing you to give your full energy to your SPED kids during the school day? Otherwise, you may have to put a hold on coaching this year and next year to recover properly. Like I said, you're only 37 with a lifetime of coaching in front of you if you take care of yourself.

Don’t risk 40 years of a bad back for one football season, coach.

Hey, it's my time to shine!

At 35 I went through this. I was a GA at a D2 and like a week before camp I sneezed and blew my L4 and L5 discs apart. This was in South Dakota, too, which did not expand Medicaid. I went through an entire season unable to stand up straight or sleep for more than about half an hour at a time. I would wake up constantly with my legs on fire.

I thugged it out. I hated it. I don't remember large chunks of the season. If I had it to do over again I would have gotten surgery ASAP and dealt with the HC straight on. He was a "back in my day we walked both ways uphill" type and I think genuinely did not understand the struggle I was going though. I was desperate to keep the job and in hindsight it was 100% not worth it. I still feel effects from it today.

The good news is that the surgery is actually pretty simple. In my case, because I only had one bad herniation, he didn't even need to cut muscle. I was literally walked out of the hospital that morning and only missed 2 days of work. I was up and pain-free in like 72 hours. If you have more issues up and down the spine it may not be that simple, but there is a real chance you may only miss a week or so.

The big thing I got from it is that I was no longer 22 and invincible. I wasn't hugely overweight, either (6'2 220), but even 15 extra pounds in your gut pulls on your lower back and puts it under an enormous amount of stress. The human body is designed to walk 15 miles a day, not sit in an office chair or a couch. Core strength and a good diet can prevent a lot of issues moving forward. I also learned to prioritize sleep. I wouldn't wish my experience on anyone.

This profession has some weird obsession with grind and hours and doing things the absolute hardest way we can and the retired grumps on here make that worse, not better. Take care of yourself. I was not a good coach in 2016. It's not worth it. No football is worth losing your health over.

I once broke my leg right before fall camp.  Doc told me you can't put any weight on it or we will have to do knee replacement at a similar age.

I said, "but it's football season".

I spent the time in a wheelchair, chair, and finally a golfcart on the practice field.  Games, I called plays from the sideline on big ass crutches putting weight on my knee.   Got wiped out at least 5 times because I couldn't move out the way.   Made me a much better coach having to learn how to teach things in different ways where I couldn't move/demonstrate. 

At the time, I felt like a warrior for the program and like a tough ass coach guy like we think we have to be.

I regret the helllll out of it now.  My knee is screwed, the ISD I was working for was total crap people ( not my hc, the admin)  There were some good kids, but I should have for the sake of my health and family taken that year off from coaching.   I could have easily taught from the wheelchair and rehabbed correctly instead of damaging it more.

Best of luck man.

It's pretty simple you hurt or injured?

Coach everyone here is saying way smarter things than I could.

But on two occasions I messed up my back with over strain. Once while moving and once trying to hit a 5 wood 335 yards which 125 yards further than I could hit it on a good day.

I don’t go to the doctor and that’s all you need to know to stop reading.

But if you are still here when I was walking around and not able to stand up a lady down the hall told me to do side planks everyday on both sides and I’d feel better in a week. I couldn’t hardly lay down and if I did I sure as hell couldn’t get back up. But I hurt so bad I gave it a try. After the third day I felt way better. After a week I was basically pain free. After two weeks stopped the planks and pain stayed away.

It probably won’t work. But I know that it worked well enough to get on here and write this post so everyone can see how stupid I am about pain and doctors.

If there’s no risk of it getting worse I’d definitely recommend trying planks for a couple days. But definitely ask your doctor to make sure it’s not going to add to the pain.

Have you tried going to a chiro? Now, I know the standard American response will be "But a Dr said..." blah, blah, blah, but I think even your best Dr's are just throwing darts at a dart board over half the time.

Like the previous poster said, if you want to stop reading right now, that's fine. But, I went through a deal starting my Sr year of college where my lower back was {censored}. Hurt to walk, sit and even sleep. Got to the point when I was 23/24ish I was sleeping sitting up. Usually in a recliner. Gained about 40lbs after college to get up to 330/340 (played at 280ish, wrestled 275 for 2 years of college). Couldn't lift, run, hell I couldn't walk. Trainers and Drs told me I'd need a hip replacement by the time I was 30/35.

Went to a chiro and found out my right leg is shorter than my left and it was severely {censored} my hips and lower back up. Eventually, I lost weight (got up to 360 at one point) and today at 47 I feel better than I did as a 25 year old. Weigh 280ish, lift 3 days a week and run 3 days. Go to the chiro once every 2 weeks. Could probably go once a month, but I like to get it taken care.

I know you haven't read bulging disc anywhere here, but it was mentioned in my quest to get this taken care of. So was surgeries, medicine and all sorts of standard American medical answers to everything. I recently also found out I'm kinda allergic to gluten. I say kinda, because it's not as bad as my daughter's (she literally will get pretty sick if she eats it). Me, I found out it made very achey. Particularly in my joints. Kinda like pre-arthritis I guess.. Stopped eating it completely around Christmas with my daughter as kind of an experiment and I'm now probably more faithful to it than she is. I feel about as good as I did 7 years ago when I was in fantastic shape. Need to lose about 15lbs though.

Long story short- I would advise you to seek as many alternative solutions as possible. It may take longer than what a Dr is offering, but I would wager it could be a better long term fix than going under the knife. If you choose that route, I wish you all the best. Personally, I just distrust the hell out of the American medical profession after what I and my family have been through with them.

Good luck coach.

Get fixed up as soon as you can.

You can coach from a golf cart until you're healed. Golf carts can move around anywhere on the field.

Not a back issue, but I had a medical emergency that led to 38 days in the hospital and a partial amputation of my lower leg. I had been coaching multiple sports for 25 years and viewed football coach as part of my identity. I wanted to keep coaching and return to normalcy so I rushed by rehab and returned to coaching before I was physically ready.
My school tried to help by giving me a young freshman assistant coach to help during practice but most days I still keeled over in pain and had to stop coaching at times during practice. I was miserable, constantly in pain, and couldn’t do my best. In the classroom I was able to teach from my desk with a document camera most days but I couldn’t do that in football.
Take care of yourself before anything else. I didn’t recover as I was supposed to. I had complications from going back to work too soon. I was in pain and miserable most days. I was irritable and short tempered with my family when I got home. The daily grind of 5:30am weight lifting, teaching, after school practice, post practice film and meetings, and weekend game planning was just too much when you’re in pain. It’s not worth it.
Go to the doctor. Get better. Put yourself and family first. Football will be there when you return. It is not fun and you feel like you let people down, but I learned that your health and family are more important. Just my two cents, but coaching in pain isn’t worth the return on the investment.

My bad. Obviously the only answer is to gobble pain killers and get an extremely invasive surgery. How silly of me.

What comes to mind is to sit for as much of practice as you can, obviously inform the team what is happening with you so they understand your need to sit.

- During Indy, take a seat on the bench and have your guys do their indy as close to you on the bench as safely possible.
- As for demonstrating technique, rely heavily on older guys who have been in the program to hopefully demonstrate the needed information as best as possible.
- I would also try and actively start searching twitter/google for any videos or images on technique/drill work that you do or want to do, and build up a library and then send that information to your guys or show them during meeting time.

The other thing i would do is to try and streamline practice for you as best as you can (obviously this depends on your role on staff, HC/OC/DC/Pos Coach etc). But my line of thinking is to try and set up a spot on the field where you can sit on the bench, or have a folding chair or whatever and then have everything that you need to do be centered in that location. So if you're the OL coach, work your indy in the corner of the endzone, and then do PUP/Inside Run in that corner as well.

the grip problem sounds like a neck issue. i have had several neck injections that have helped a lot with pain. although the muscle deterioration from nerve damage still occurs, and i still have problems with my right arm down into my hand.

you really need a spinal doctor/pain management guy, or clinic. they can help. would probably involve injections and some prescription drugs, but all of that has helped me be somewhat active again. not like the way i was, but life is worth living again.

not criticizing, and the idea to sit is good, but sitting on a bench with a bad back can be as bad, or worse, than standing. or it is for me. look for some kind of folding chair with lumbar support, or something that can be used for lumbar support.

ibuprofen can help. some.
over the counter is 200 mg pills. ibuprofen used to be prescription only, but the prescription dose was 800 mg, so 4 ibuprofen would be a prescription dose. was told by a nurse one time to take 4 with a tylenol. they have a synergistic effect, works a little better, a little longer. preferably with something in your stomach.

try to avoid tylenol by itself. it's very hard on the liver. if you take some, have something in your stomach. also, never mix tylenol and alcohol. very very bad for your liver. had an uncle with a bad back who died from liver failure for that very reason.

if i am telling you things you already know, i apologize. i'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but i've been down this road, and i'm still on it, even though i'm not coaching anymore.

good luck.