Last fall, as I was getting ready for a meet, my back started acting up. I tend to just credit 20-some years of powerlifting to these weird quirky things. I'm not sure if there is actual disc issues or not.
I managed to make it through the meet (which, if you're a competitor, you know that just "making it through" is never really fun). Even after the meet, I was having trouble finding some comfort. The time away from the barbell was extremely helpful, which we always do during our post-meet GPP phases.
I also took the time to really warm-up. And not just warm-up but find things can gave my back relief. For me, I began to allow my spine to move through some ranges of motion that it normally doesn't do. Now don't get me wrong, we want stability in the spine, so I wasn't trying to be a yogi or a contortionist.
So here is what I've been doing. This takes me approximately 10 minutes to get through. One of the big ones for me is #2. I made sure that my toes can touch the ground behind me when I roll back. If I can't, I know I'm tight.
This warm-up looks bae I'm going to start doing 2 circuits of it right away as part of my warm up -- when I am strong, MOBILE and explosive is when my body is in the least pain and I have quality of life to go along with performance.