Lower Back Recovery Newsletter Subscribe — €9.90/mo

Weekly newsletter · built in the open

Your back hurts.
Most advice
makes it worse.

A weekly newsletter built on personal experience and research worth reading. Every issue: one clinical topic explored, one movement described, sources you can actually follow — and Martin's honest account of where he is that week.

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In this issue
Do you actually know what your diagnosis means?
Clinical topic
Disc anatomy — bulge, protrusion, extrusion, sequestration. What the four stages actually mean, and why the distinction changes the conversation with your clinician.
Movement
Diaphragmatic breathing — what the research describes about its connection to lumbar stability, and why physiotherapists include it.
This week's story
LeBron James missed 14 games. A spine surgeon's observation about who disc herniation actually happens to.
Every issue follows this structure · sources curated by Martin every week
Sound familiar?
"I have tried everything and nothing makes sense."
Most back pain content gives you exercises without the context behind them. This newsletter describes what the research explores — and where to go to understand it properly.
"My physio says one thing, YouTube says another."
Contradictory advice is the norm. Every issue describes one clinical topic clearly and points to the sources Martin found most useful — no instructions, no upsell.
"I want to understand what is actually happening."
Understanding your diagnosis changes everything. The language is learnable. Once you understand it, you stop being a passenger in your own body.

Every issue

What lands in your inbox, every week

01
One clinical topic explored
A single subject, described clearly — what the research explores, what the sources say, what Martin finds interesting about it. Not instructions. Context.
Recent example
"What the four stages of disc herniation actually mean structurally"
02
One movement described
Martin describes a movement he does — what it involves, what the research says about it, and what physiotherapists say about it at different stages of recovery.
Recent example
"Diaphragmatic breathing — the connection to lumbar stability that surprised me"
03
Sources worth your time
Martin curates 4–7 sources every week — videos, research papers, clinical guides, real stories. Things he actually read and found useful. Not generic links.
Recent example
"Visual explainers · research papers · clinical guides · real stories — Martin reads them so you know where to look"

In this issue

Do you actually know what your diagnosis means?

I got my fifth MRI this week. Ten years of lower back problems, two L5-S1 surgeries — and I am sitting there reading the report like I have done four times before. Except this time, something is different. The words that used to make me close the page and stare at the wall just describe something now. A location. A classification. A thing with a name.

That shift did not come from the surgeries. It came from eventually understanding the language. And reading that fifth report with something close to calm, I kept thinking: I wish someone had handed me a map on day one.

This newsletter is that map.

This issue explores the four stages of disc herniation — what each one actually means structurally, why the distinction matters, and what a spine surgeon noted about who disc herniation actually happens to. There is a quote from a famous athlete in this issue that stopped me. If you have ever been in real nerve pain, you will know exactly which sentence I mean.

This issue contains
→ A visual explainer of disc herniation — the clearest one I have found. Subscribers only.
→ An interactive 3D model of the spine you can explore yourself. Subscribers only.
→ A remarkable athlete story about nerve pain — and the surgeon's observation that reframes everything. Subscribers only.
→ A 2023 meta-analysis on breathing and lower back pain — 11 randomised trials, and why the findings surprised me. Subscribers only.
→ + 3 more sources curated for this issue.

Subscribe to read this issue in full — and receive every issue after it, every week.

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Reader stories

People who found their way back

"
After two years of chronic pain, this newsletter gave me the language I needed. The fear-avoidance issue alone was worth a year of physio.
M
Marek K.
Marathon runner · Prague
"
I sit at a desk 10 hours a day. One issue changed my setup overnight. Three months pain-free — I cancelled my physio appointments.
S
Sophie L.
Developer · Berlin
"
I was convinced I would need surgery. Understanding what was actually happening in my spine — from a newsletter — completely changed my approach.
T
Tomáš B.
Teacher · Brno
As read by A growing community of people — physiotherapists, coaches, desk workers, athletes, parents — who wanted to understand their back rather than just manage it.

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Why this newsletter exists

My back broke me. Twice. Here is what I learned.

By Martin — founder, Broken & Back · Age 42

The long buildup

I played baseball for 25 years. Every swing, every throw, every rotation happens in one direction. Over thousands of repetitions with no structured compensatory training, that asymmetry accumulates silently in the spine. You do not feel it happening. You feel it years later.

Progressive degenerative changes at the L5–S1 level were developing quietly while I managed occasional episodes the way most people do: physio when it flared, rest when it did not, and a general hope it would resolve.

The asymmetry of 25 years of baseball was loading my L5–S1 in silence. I was not listening.

The first collapse

Then came the first COVID lockdown. Months of unstructured remote work. The sustained load on an already-compromised disc proved to be the final stressor. A complete L5–S1 disc extrusion — nuclear material migrating beyond the annular wall, compressing the nerve root with enough force that I lost motor control of my left leg. I went directly to surgery: microdiscectomy at L5–S1, nearly a year of rehabilitation. I got back to baseball. I started horse riding. I thought it was behind me.

The second collapse

In 2024, despite ongoing physiotherapy and an active lifestyle, I experienced a recurrence. More severe. A second surgical intervention: endoscopic disc repair at the same level. Two surgeries, four years apart, confronts you with the hard truth that surgery addresses the crisis — but not the underlying conditions that created the vulnerability. That work is yours to do.

Surgery addresses the acute crisis. It does not address what created the vulnerability in the first place.

Why I built this

I built Broken & Back because I spent years receiving fragmented, contradictory guidance from well-meaning professionals who each saw their slice of the problem. I read the research myself. I synthesised it through the lens of someone who has actually been on the floor unable to move, and who has come back from it twice.

This newsletter shares that reading — with sources you can follow, in language you can understand, without telling you what to do. Your clinician does that. We just help you arrive at those appointments better informed.

Martin
Founder, Broken & Back · 25 years of baseball · 2× L5–S1 surgery · now bouldering