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Hi, I have a bit of a predicament and before going to an osteopath thought of sharing the experience as I believe it might be something that others have run into as well and would love to hear your stories. My lower back area tends to have some kind of structural / unbalance problem which in normal life doesn't really cause problems but in some positions / stretches it sometimes has caused even lumbago out of the blue. For example once I was sitting in pancake stretch and when trying to get out of it my back just snapped and was really painfully "stuck" for days. One way that especially makes itself known is dead hang. If I try to dead hang from a bar and relax my core, the lower back spinal area immediately causes sharp pain which I can only alleviate by either causing tension in abs or some other way "not relax". Hence I am feeling that there is some unbalance / tension there which doesn't really get help from dead hang kind of relaxation and it feels bad because I think that I should be able to have the back decompress without this kind of pain / problem happening. Usually after this kind of dead hang even for 10 seconds or so the back "stays in pain" and I have to do careful positional shifts and muscle activations in the lower back to "get it back to normal" again. Like I said if I don't aggravate it it doesn't really cause trouble in normal day to day life and even in exercises but I probably have learned to intuitively "be careful" with it and there is probably some kind of preventative constant tension there that prevents the area from aggravating. If anyone has similar situation and has found some ways to work it out I appreciate and stories! Like I said I'm going to see an osteopath and hopefully can get some professional evaluation regarding my own situation but I believe there is something quite generic going on that somebody else has had as well.

I am making good progress in my rom for jefferson curls and middle splits. No movement is painful and my daily activity is not compromised, but I do notice that the vertebrae in my lumbar area are tender to the touch. Overall, I would say that the level of discomfort is on the order of muscle soreness. Is this normal?