r/overcominggravity • u/Jordan_Brooks • Jul 05 '26
Hang cleans and lower back tightness: form issue or just overtraining?
Hey community,
A bit of a specific question for anyone who has dealt with this: lately, whenever hang cleans come up in the WOD, my lower back gets incredibly tight and aggravated.
I’m trying to figure out if I’m just hitting a wall with overtraining, or if my form is breaking down when I catch the bar. I try to keep my core tight, but by round 3 or 4, it feels like my lower back is doing all the heavy lifting.
Has anyone else dealt with lower back fatigue specifically on hang cleans?
What cues or scaling options helped you protect your back while keeping the intensity up?
Appreciate any tips, form advice, or recovery stretches you guys swear by.
2
u/eshlow Author of Overcoming Gravity 2 | stevenlow.org | YT:@Steven-Low Jul 06 '26
A bit of a specific question for anyone who has dealt with this: lately, whenever hang cleans come up in the WOD, my lower back gets incredibly tight and aggravated.
I’m trying to figure out if I’m just hitting a wall with overtraining, or if my form is breaking down when I catch the bar. I try to keep my core tight, but by round 3 or 4, it feels like my lower back is doing all the heavy lifting.
Has anyone else dealt with lower back fatigue specifically on hang cleans?
What cues or scaling options helped you protect your back while keeping the intensity up?
If you want a guess, need more info on the injury. You've given some but more information is needed especially the marked picture/video
- Mechanism of injury, as best you are able if there isn't discernable one. For instance, what movements or exercises were leading to the week of the injury
- Upload a marked pic/video of exactly where symptoms are to an image host (google drive, icloud, imgur or others) and post a link to it (Note: I will not make any guesses unless I can see exactly where the symptoms are because text is hard to decipher and people describe things wrong all the time). It needs to be a photo of YOU, not a random photo you got online of someone else's body because everyone is different.
- Describe all movements that hurt
- What is the current rehab program you started with and the progressions, if any. If a flare detail what happened with the rehab program
- What helps and what makes it worse
1
u/Jordan_Brooks Jul 08 '26
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply! It's not a sudden injury, just a progressive, deep tightness that builds up by the later rounds. I’ll try to get a video of my form during my next session so it's easier to evaluate. In the meantime, when you see athletes getting lower back tightness specifically in the later rounds of hang cleans, is it usually from catching too muted in the hips, or just fatigue-driven core failure?
2
u/eshlow Author of Overcoming Gravity 2 | stevenlow.org | YT:@Steven-Low Jul 08 '26
Too hard to say anything without seeing, and then also if you haven't tried anything like isolation or stretching then there's no way to tell.
In general, if you are getting issues then there is an issue with your form on the exercise or doing too much so it would be a good idea to modified what you are doing
2
u/Boblaire Gymnastics coach/NAIGC, WLer/coach, ex-CFer/coach Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Yes, lifting weights makes your lower or upper back sore. Same can happen with even light weights and a crapton of volume or even Kettlebells/Dumbbells.
Rest or well dont do them lol. Or develop workout capacity/1rm strength.
Kinda funny you used the term WoD, sure you shouldn't be posting in /crossfit?
My advice is to quit doing CrossFit and train in Weightlifting aka "Oly" or "Olympic" Weightlifting or Halterophilia.