Dead lift & back pain, other w/o ?'s

I just started a new routine this week from Men's Health that includes dead lifts, which I've specifically avoided for the better part of a year anticipating the intense lower back pain I was sure would result.

I was right. 

And this is not the good, muscle soreness kinda pain, this is intense, focused, can't really stand up straight pain.  I've had this for years in various degrees (but losing a buncha weight really helped!!), so I know it will get better soon, but in the meantime...First question:  Is there some common technique mistake I might have made to cause the pain?  I did my best to keep my back straight and feet flat on the ground, and I didn't use some insane amount of weight.  (135 lbs, I'm 190 ish.)

Should I:

a.  continue the workout and work through the pain?

b.  continue the workout but skip the dead lifts?, or replace with something else?

c.  take a break till it's better?

Other ?'s:

Chin-ups vs. pull-ups?

Front squat vs. regular squat?

For the record, here's the workout, Rate & review, please!  Criticism gladly accepted!

 100 cal (according to the machine) warmup on elliptical

3x10 of:

Dead Lift, 135 lbs 

Squats, 135 lbs 

Dumbell Bench Press, 100 lbs (50/side)

Chinups (okay, I can't do 10, 3x5) 195 lbs (or one me)

Push Press, 80 lbs  

Hammer Curl, 25 lbs each side

Back extension w/ 25 lb plate

Reverse Crunch w/ 15 lb dumbell  

Shoulder round-the-worlds, 15 lbs

Seated Calf Raises, 125 lbs

20 minutes on strider-elliptical @ level 5.

Cardio Burn according to machines:  435 cals, (yeah, that seems ridiculously high)

Cal Burn on weights:  Dunno.

Total time 1.5 hours

 Don't train through pain - you risk chronic injuries that way. You can train around it, and you probably should but it requires some thought to figure out what to do. Before you do any deadlifting again, strengthen your posterior chain with reverse hypers, glute-ham raises, possibly RDL's or rack pulls, planks and hip bridges.

 When doing the deadlift, think gorilla - big chest, arms hanging down, flat back with a natural curve in the lumbar spine, and pull from the hip.

 If you're having back pain, I'm looking at those back extensions as the more likely culprit though; if you use momentum and hyperextend your lumbar spine you can do seriously nasty things to it. Reverse hypers are much safer - it's harder to place your spine in a position it's not supposed to be in.

 Chinups - pullups just disadvantage your biceps somewhat and place a slightly greater strain on your teres minor, but for back and arm developement it's better to do the exercise where you can use the greater volume.

 Front squat has a slightly greater athletic carryover and is more quad-dominant than the back squat but requires slightly more flexibility to perform correctly. However, several coaches have stopped using the back squat with almost all their athletes; apparently it's easier to train up the required flexibility than it is to train people to perform the back squat correctly.

 Are the exercises in order performed? 'coz deadlifts are usually done last due to the demand they place on your CNS. So unless you're deliberately training in a fatigued state for the rest of the exercises I wouldn't have it where you've placed it in your workout..

I just started doing deadlifts, which I had long put off because of back issues as well.  I had "practiced" doing them without weights, but would feel it (badly) in my back. I started doing them again, and I think I've figured out how to hold my body so that it doesn't aggrevate my back.

First, I'd say let your back recover before restarting them. My experience has been that during a flare up, little things are more likely to hurt, so you want to start fresh.

As for form - I was originally told keep my back straight. But (and it might be that I'm a woman, or it might just be me) it turned out that keeping it "straight" for me really means keeping the natural curve of my back. The easiest way for me to do that is keep my head up, shoulders down/back so that my chest is puffed out, and my butt sticks out. The butt sticking out is what keeps my back in the natural curve. If I try to "tuck" my tailbone, my back is in the wrong position (it rounds), and I hurt my lower back, even with very little weight.  The only other thing I can think of is keep the weight on your heels, not your toes.

Hope that helped some. It also helped me have someone put their hand on my lower back - I could feel as I bent over what point I left the natural curve and started rounding my back.

Thanks for the replies.

The exercises are in the order described, not for any good reason than that's what the magazine said.  I did notice during the rest of the workout I could only do 90-95% of my "normal" weights.  I'll move the DLs to the end when I'm ready to do them again.

I'll skip the DL's and look at what those other ones you described were - I considered the back extensions as a culprit too, but I've done those plenty w/ no ill effects, which made me think of the DL's - the only new to me exercise.

The mag also says front squats instead of back squats, but I was so awkward (and for me, that's really awkward) I could hardly do it with about 2/3 the weight of the back squat.  Wrist discomfort & twisting, bar trying to fall, me trying not to fall over.  If nothing else, hopefully somebody in the gym got a cardio blast from laughing.

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

PS - good to know on the chin-ups vs. pull-ups. 

for myself, if i am doing deadlifts and i feel it in my back, i know my form is slipping. by this I mean that most of my weight/pressure should be on the heel of my foot, and when/if I shift the weight i can feel it in my back.

don't work through the pain, thats the body's warning system.