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I've had intermittent lower back pain for years, long before I ever started lifting weights. The earliest I remember experiencing it was 2019, which I attributed to an old mattress: replacing it seemed to do the trick. In the first few weeks of Covid I was sitting on a kitchen chair for eight hours a day which aggravated my back dreadfully, but my employer was good enough to have a swivel chair delivered, after which the pain subsided for months. Ever since then I've had periodic flare-ups wherein my lower back will feel a bit stiff and painful for a week or so, before receding. Over the years I've tried dozens of different back stretches and exercises, with effectiveness ranging from mild to non-existent.
By some combination of search terms the benevolent YouTube algorithm bestowed upon me this video yesterday evening, and after completing all the stretches in it (which took all of fifteen minutes), my back felt better than it had in weeks. I immediately went to the gym and did five sets of deadlifts at 170kg, experiencing no discomfort during or after.
maybe you should look at misfiring of quadratus lumborum while your glutes are sleeping. Normally, glutes should fire first and after that QL should start its work. if the opposite is happening then you will have overactivity of QL which would get into spasm and pain. making the body learn the correct pattern will help in getting rid of this kind of pain.
It doesn't mean that your glutes or QL are weak (so making them stronger is not the solution). The firing mechanism has got reversed, that's all.
If your diagnosis is accurate, do you have any suggestions for how I could correct it?
you will have to look at Lower Crossed syndrome. eg link. (i am not a pro physiotherapist). but the sequence would be something like this:
make the correct diagnosis. self-diagnosis can be done but keep in mind about repeating different tests to make the diagnosis more certain (don't rely on a single test). You can do videos of your posture and deeply feel your muscle while starting various movements (which one contracts first is important, which you check by feeling that muscle).
finding the reason of why the glutes are sleeping or why others are firing first or firing more. two big examples are long sitting hours and shallow breathing (less diaphragmatic breathing, more thoracic breathing). those would need to be corrected.
Then step by step approach to correction. This would include:
A. Relaxing the misfiring / early firing muscles - this you do with foam rolls, egg/tennis ball rolls, or hot fomentation over those particular muscles. This will relax these muscles and stop their inhibitory (automatic relaxing) effect on their opposite group (in this case, the glutes).
B. Relearn the correct firing pattern. The example exercises are: B1. Hip Hitch (the first one in your provided youtube) = stand on a step on one leg, let the other side of the pelvis drop below level, then Hike It Back Up using only the Gluteus medius, do 15 reps very slowly. B2. Side-lying hip abduction with pre-squeeze (squeeze glute first, leg slightly behind the body, toes neutral, take your leg up till your back muscle fires at which point you stop. B3. Single leg bridge with other hip flexed. B4. Dead bugs.
C. Progressive loading with correct sequence. Single leg Romanian deadlift.
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