Tag Archives: posture

Break old habits to fix an achy back

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Healing a sore back requires breaking some old habits and forming some new ones, says Dr. Stuart McGill. If you’re living with an achy back, getting your swagger back, as McGill, the most recognized spine researcher in the world, states, is different from a knee or shoulder problem. The knee and shoulder, particularly in the early stages of rehab, both do well with full range of motion exercises—think of arm circles. Fixing your low back pain is different and more nuanced, as your spine needs stability, not excess motion. This means that you don’t want excess curves in the spine. A goal for a healthy back is to maintain a neutral spine position during your prescribed program, as well as in daily activities.

The emphasis throughout the day and during workouts is to focus on proper spine stability, rather than more movement in the lower back. Do you slouch when you sit or have too much curve in your lower back while standing? Do you bend over to lift a large object, which is problematic for the posterior back disks? Poor movement habits, repeated throughout the day, can result in a sore back. Stretching and strengthening are important, but not the whole answer. A key to a healthy back is retraining how you position your back during activities, lessening excess spine curves.

Move mindfully with the abdominal brace

McGill likens the abdominal brace as a mild contraction of the abdominals as though you are preparing to get punched in the belly. But it’s not in extremes, like “sucking them in.” Like a dimmer switch gradually adjusts light levels in a room, the abdominal stiffness during your activities isn’t an on/off switch, but works in relationship to what you are doing. You would use less ab bracing during walking and more for lifting a heavy object, for example.

Wall test for excess low back curve

Photo by Connie Aronson
Try the wall test to check for excessive lumbar curve

The abdominal muscles connect your ribs to hips along the front and sides. When you use your abs, they pull the ribs and hips closer. When you stand up, for example, and don’t use your abs, you allow your ribs and hips to be too far apart, creating back sway. Over time, this can contribute to movement flaws, soft tissue stress, or disc problems.

If you can’t stand back with your back against a wall with your heels, hips, upper back and the back of your head lightly touching, without arching your back, you probably have weak abdominal muscles. Remember, our goal is to reduce the excess curves of the spine. Try this test at home.

• Stand with your back to a wall, with heels, butt, shoulders, and head comfortably touching the wall.

• Keep your feet in a neutral position and legs straight.

• Have a friend place a hand behind your low back, or use your hand.

Results: If you can put your whole hand behind the space in the lower back, you have too much back sway.

Ideally, if you know how to brace your core, you wouldn’t be able to put your hand behind lower back !

If you can only get the first knuckle in your hand behind the lower back, congratulations, you have excellent abdominal bracing skills!

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-break-old-habits-to-fix-your-achy-back/article_b0a8b022-b336-11ed-9db5-5b0e14ef4dc1.html: Break old habits to fix an achy back

Five everyday movements you need

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Good habits contribute to optimum health. When it comes to your health, preventing injuries in any sport or activity you enjoy is crucial. No one likes being injured. With a New Year fast approaching, here are five injury-preventing moves to help you get fit without getting hurt. Whether you are a seasoned athlete, or just want to stay in shape, incorporate these moves into your day.

Activate the Core

Include daily core exercises! The core muscles help stabilize the spine and support movement. The following 2 core exercises activate the core in different ways to help initiate all movement, and contribute to strength capacity.

Side Lying Hip Lift

Side Lying Hip Lift -The core muscles help stabilize the spine and support movement.

• Lying on your right side with knees bent (or straight for advanced variation), place right elbow under right shoulder. Push shoulder away from ear to engage shoulder girdle ) .

• Avoid letting rib cage slump toward floor; maintain natural curve of spine.

• Exhale and lift right hip off of floor, and hold for 3 counts.

• Slowly lower to start. 10-12 reps. Switch sides

Heel-on-Toe Crunch

• Begin with your legs straight, left heel on top of right foot.

• Bring left hand behind your head for support, and lift right arm straight up from shoulder.

• Curl up, raising head, neck and shoulders blades off mat, tightening abdominals.

• Slowly return to start position. 10 reps. Switch sides.

Stretch tight hamstrings

Stretch tight hamstrings -Photo by Connie Aronson

Tightness in the back of your legs may be a sign of instability in your core, causing the leg muscles to overwork and shorten. As well, hamstrings are an important muscle to stretch if you have back pain, as they attach to the pelvis, which attaches to the back. An excellent move to ease the tension and strengthen your torso is the inverted hamstring stretch. This move engages your core muscles to help keep you balanced.

• Stand on your left leg with your arms extended to the sides.

• Extend your right leg behind you while hinging your torso forward, keeping your back straight, and slowly return to standing.

• Do 5 reps each side

Foam Roller Alignment

Foam Roller Alignment- Photo by Connie Aronson

We’re all guilty of bending forward while scrolling on our phones, resulting in a “forward head.” For every inch that your head is forward there’s 10 more pounds of pressure on the neck. Reset your alignment by lying on a foam roller.  Lengthening the lumbar erector spinal muscles helps encourage neutral alignment.

• With your knees bent, lie on a roller, head supported and neck in a neutral position.

• Tighten the abdominals.

• Gently roll side to side for 20-30 seconds

The Sock Test

Losing your balance as you get older is no joke. Research has shown that the ability to stand on one foot drastically decreases after the age of 60, along with a rapid increase of falls and injury. The ability to stand on one leg is imperative for gait and function.

The sock test takes the move a step further, and is a fun challenge to build strength capacity and balance.

• Holding a sock, stand on one leg, knee slightly bent.

• Bring your leg up towards you as you put your sock on

• Lower the leg to the floor and repeat with your left foot.

Include these movements, everyday, if you can, to stay fit and supple. Happy healthy New Year!

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-five-everyday-movements-you-need/article_35aaaaf4-86d3-11ed-83e5-6b842192aaff.html

Benefits of stretching and flexibility

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Stretching goals could be biological, psychological or philosophical, such as a yoga practice.

Along with regular physical activity and resistance training, adults whose goal is to improve fitness and health shouldn’t overlook stretching. No matter how stiff or old you are, you can improve your flexibility by starting a stretching program. The American Heart Association, the American College of Sports Medicine and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans all recommend including a flexibility program to your week. A deliberate, planned regular program of stretching practiced 2-3 times per week can increase range of motion in approximately 3-4 weeks. Your flexibility may improve in as few as ten sessions with an intensive program.

The benefits of flexibility are vast and determined by your goals. Your objectives may be biological, psychological or philosophical, such as a yoga practice. Stretching feels good, whatever your objective is. 

When you stretch, you take soft tissue structures beyond their available length to increase range of motion. Flexibility isn’t a general characteristic, but is specific to a particular joint and joint action. For example, you might have full range of motion in the hip, but not in the foot or ankle.

Here are a few things to consider when embarking on a stretching program.

1.Which types of stretching improve flexibility?

Several types of flexibility exercises can improve your range of motion.

When performed properly, ballistic flexibility—like the “bouncing” or rebounding typically seen in basketball—increases flexibility similar to static stretching.

Dynamic, or functional, flexibility is akin to a ballet dancer slowly raising and holding her leg at a 60-degree angle, and progressively increasing her range of motion as the movement is repeated several times.

Active static stretching involves holding the stretched position using the strength of the agonist muscle, as in yoga.

Also consider PNF and static stretching. Both elicit greater gains in joint range of motion than dynamic or slow-movement stretching.

2. Rolling is time well-spent

Self-myofascial release is another stretching technique that focuses on the muscles and the fascia that surrounds them. It is a massage technique of applying sustained pressure to a knot, adhesion or area that is tight or stiff. Muscle fibers are altered from a bundled position into straighter alignment within the fascia. The goal is to find a tender spot and , with a tennis ball or foam roller, and sustain pressure on that spot for 20-30 seconds.

4. Muscular relaxation of stress and tension

One of the most important benefits of a stretching program is that it can alleviate stress and promote relaxation. A contracted muscle requires more energy than a relaxed one. Tight muscles tend to cut off their own circulation, creating reduced blood supply and waste products accumulating in the cells, potentially causing aches and pains. Stretching helps maintain the normal functional length of all muscles.

5. Poise and posture

Inflexibility in some muscle groups contributes to poor posture. Posture is the position of body parts in relation to each other where minimum stress is applied to each other. Rounded shoulders, for example, can weaken and shorten the pectoral muscles. Stretching the pecs, as well as strengthening the scapular girdle, will improve posture.

6. How long should a stretch be held?

Hold a stretch for 10-30 seconds at the point of tightness or slight discomfort to enhance joint range of motion. Research shows there is little benefit resulting from longer durations. Instead, repeat the stretch three to four times, resulting in 60 seconds of total stretching time per flexibility exercise. Older people will achieve greater improvements with longer holds, between 30-60 seconds.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru-benefits-of-stretching-and-flexibility/article_41d1c102-5aee-11ed-ab9f-dbde24fcb2e8.html

Fix your low back pain with better body mechanics

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Too much sitting is hard on our bodies and can add to the prevalence of low back pain. Twenty-six bones make up the spinal column with three gentle curves from top to bottom. For many with low back pain, the cumulative effects of constant or repeated small stresses over time, like sitting, result in back pain. Too much sitting, combined with faulty posture, can flatten these curves over time. The spine is designed to function best as a weight-bearing structure, with the lumbar curve in a neutral position. Sitting rounded, or slumped in a seat, multiplies damaging pressure on lower back discs and soft tissues. Another concern is that prolonged sitting chronically shortens the hip flexors. Once again, too much sitting, prevalent in our modern age, has other drawbacks and can cause secondary health concerns, such as high blood pressure and increased risk for diseases like diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disorders.

The good news is that low back pain can dissipate. Body composition, strength of the core musculature and faulty movement patterns are all potential cause of low back pain. Most back pain is easy to reverse; the secret is addressing common musculature imbalances. Too much sway or arch in the lower back, too much bending, weak or overstretched muscles, or poor posture are contributing factors that can be corrected to ensure a healthy back.

If you are in pain, but not dealing with diagnosed or undiagnosed medical issues, nerve impingement, or traumatic injury, you fall into the category of mechanical low-back pain.

Faulty Movement Patterns

The easiest way to fix your own pain is to correct faulty body mechanics. We know we shouldn’t bend wrong, but we do. We bend over wrong picking up laundry, petting the dog, making the bed, or looking at a phone. We work over our desks, drive and ride bent forward every day. Look around the gym and it’s a minefield of bent backs. You’ll see people lifting weights bent over, and bend over wrong to place them back on racks.

Integrated Core

The spine is at its strongest, most resilient and most supported position when it is in a state of muscular and skeletal balance, and in a neutral position.

The abdominal brace is an important way to use the core to find neutral position. Bracing, says Dr. Stuart McGill, a leading spine researcher, is a different concept than that of simply holding in your stomach, or “pulling your belly to your spine.” Rather, it’s mild contraction of the abdominal muscles, as though you are preparing for a punch in the mid-section. In his book “Back Mechanic,” he asks his back patients to gradually adjust the amount of contraction to find the optimal stiffness, much like how a dimmer switch gradually adjusts light in a room. Whether you are sitting, walking, or are a high-performance athlete, all movement is orchestrated from this fine-tuned control of the core.

Next time you pick up a package, try to brace your core, hip hinge, and use your gluteus muscles, which help extend the hips to assist in standing up, sparing the lower back from over-use.

Self-Test

Here’s a simple test to see if you have neutral spine alignment, or back sway. Stand barefoot with your back to the wall, with heels, butt and shoulders against the wall. Then try to place one hand, palm down, behind your lower back. If the space is up to and in-line with your second knuckle, you have neutral pelvis. Normally the pelvis is rotated approximately 10 degrees. But if the space is large enough for your whole hand, you have a deviation, an anterior tilt of the pelvis called lumbar lordosis. Tilt the pelvis posteriorly by bringing the front of your waistband up to learn neutral, engaging the core.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM Exercise Physiologist and Corrective Movement Specialist (TBBM-CES) Visit her at www.conniearonson.com and

Instagram @conniearon

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_9e3c776e-e5b7-11eb-a0ba-5730f013cbf7.html

Three exercises to keep your shoulders healthy

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Fitness guru

All -star pitcher Pedro Martinez was one of the lucky players to return to the major leagues after a complete rotator cuff tear, typically a season-ending injury. The rotator cuff is made up of muscles and tendons that stabilize the shoulder joint. Over time, damage to the rotator cuff can become significant because of the stress placed on these structures.

You don’t have to be a world-class pitcher to have shoulder problems. Ideally, we want our shoulders open and back. The shoulder girdle is unique in that it has few joints, but many muscles that attach to the upper back, as well as the chest and arms. The upper back region is important in shoulder health, as the lower trapezius, rhomboids, and rotator cuff muscles stabilize and retract the shoulder blades.

To understand how the upper back coordinates with the shoulder, notice if you raise your shoulder when moving your arm. Notice if you tighten or raise your shoulders to turn your head to look over your shoulder when driving.

Professional baseball players have to manipulate their bodies in an incredibly complicated way to throw at astounding speeds. On the mound, pitchers have to work with asymmetries in the body, using one side of the body for many, many repetitions. Their training must involve unwinding the damage caused by this imbalance and make both sides of the body function well. For the rest of us, at play and during the day, we can train and be aware of symmetry in our upper backs and shoulders.

Her are three exercises for proper functioning of the upper back and shoulders.

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W Stretch || Photos by Connie Aronson

1.    W Stretch. Stand up, with your core engaged. Pull the shoulders down and back. Externally rotate and fully extend the arms. You should feel it in the chest and front of the shoulder. The W stretch strengthens the rhomboids, traps and external rotators of the shoulder and arm. Hold 20-30 seconds, 2-3 times per day.

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2.    A’s on the ball. Lie on your chest on a ball, legs straight with feet firmly on the floor. The arms are straight and close to the body, resembling the letter “A.” Raise and lower the arms, externally rotating the arms from the shoulder so that the thumbs point out and up. Throughout the exercise, keep shoulder blades down and back, chin gently pushed back. Ten reps.

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3.    T’s on the ball. Lie on your chest on a ball, legs straight with feet firmly on the floor. Raise the arms to form a T position, palms down, then lower arms. Throughout the exercise, keep shoulder blades down and back, chin gently pushed back. Ten reps.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM Exercise Physiologist and Corrective Exercise Specialist (TBM-CES) Visit her at www.conniearonson.comand Instagram@conniearon

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_9606c44c-cfae-11eb-8de5-cbf3271af76c.html

21-06-18 Weekender Fitness 1@.jpg
Photos by Connie Aronson

Build core power and stability with the Farmer’s Walk

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The Farmer’s Walk is a great whole-body exercise.

Core stability is imperative for all facets of movement and performance, whether you’re a skier or skater.

As a new ski season kicks off, core strength can be a great asset to ski at a higher intensity, for a longer duration and with less fatigue. When you hit the terrain, you’ll want to have good core stability to not only turn well, but also handle different and varied snow conditions with ease. It’s not too late to add a great whole-body exercise called Farmer’s Walk—a walk with a weight—to your training program.  

Walking or any lower body movement where you carry or “load” yourself with a weight for a predetermined distance or time challenges the entire kinetic chain of the body and targets the deep stabilizing muscles of the core.

What is core stability?

The definition of core stability is your ability to maintain your posture and balance while moving your extremities. Sound a lot like skiing?

The core musculature has a unique function. Throughout the day, if you’re active, the core muscles act to stiffen the torso and function primarily to prevent motion. A strong core allows the strength to radiate out peripherally to the rest of the body.

Core stability is imperative for all facets of movement and performance, whether you’re a skier or skater. The Farmer’s Walk is a great whole-body exercise. The exercise targets the abdominals, and provides peak activation of all the muscles that support the spine, the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus and cervical spine muscles during the walk. You’ll hit all the core muscles of the trunk and pelvic stability muscles, as well as the hips.

Together, these numerous and multi-jointed muscles are known as the lumbo-pelvic hip complex.

You can think of Farmer’s Walk as a vertical plank, a move that challenges the lumbo-pelvic hip complex. There are several variations of loaded carries, and here are two variations that will strengthen your core as well as challenge the body’s stabilizing system.

Unilateral Farmer’s Walk

Unilateral training exposes any asymmetries in the body. Noticeably, walking with a single weight provides a greater spine load than if the load were split between two hands. (For beginners, you might want to experiment with carrying a weight in each hand.) Carrying one weight targets the lateral spine muscles, called quadratus lumborum, and the lateral abdominal wall, which have an important role in that they stiffen the pelvis to prevent it from bending to the side of the leg swing.  The unilateral Farmer’s Walk also enhances the rotational demand to the core as the body now has to control the added stress in order to maintain dynamic balance.

 Choose weights that are challenging yet appropriate for your fitness level.

•    Squat down and grasp a weight in one hand. Maintain a braced core, and return to a stand-tall position.

•    Take slow and controlled steps forward for 30 seconds. Alternate sides.

Unilateral Farmer’s Walk

Unilateral Waiter’s Walk

An added benefit to this move is that it helps strengthen the muscles around the shoulder, referred to as glenohumeral stability, a term used to describe how the arm bone sits well into the shoulder and upper back muscles. Here’s how it’s done.  

•    Grab a weight in one hand and return to a stand-tall position.

•    Extend arm up overhead.

•    Keep a tight grip on the weight and take slow controlled steps forward for 30 seconds. Alternate sides.

Unilateral Waiter’s Walk

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/ski-fitness/article_9112101c-2db6-11eb-9a56-e30f89e1d500.html

Sore neck? 2 quick fixes for forward head

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If it’s your habit that your head juts forward and is ahead of your shoulders, you can learn how to fix this common musculoskeletal imbalance.


  • by CONNIE ARONSON

If you feel like you have the weight of the world on your head right now, it could be time to change that situation. If it’s your habit that your head juts forward and is ahead of your shoulders, muscular neck and head pain could be the culprit. It’s very possible that headaches, jaw pain or grinding noises in the jaw could be the result of your forward head. When you have a forward head position, your body’s center of gravity shifts forward and increases the weight of your head in relation to the body. Your head effectively weighs almost as much as two bowling bowls, if it is only 2 inches forward and out of alignment with your upper back.

Imagine the head as round as a ball perched on top of the spine. In real life, the head rests on the most mobile part of the spine, the neck. Because of the small base it sits on, the head becomes more like a large ball sitting precariously on a seal’s nose. The numerous neck muscles that hold your head up all work together to keep your head sitting correctly on top of your shoulders, whether you’re riding a bike, doing crunches, walking or running. However, if you are constantly looking down at your phone, or watching a lot of television, the front neck muscles become weak from being continually stretched forward. When you align the head in an optimal anatomical position, you align the entire upper back, shoulder girdle and ribcage.

There are two common muscle imbalances in the head and neck. One is your head being too far forward, (forward head) and the second one is excessive cervical lordosis, when the muscles in the back of the neck are chronically shortened. For example, suppose you are watching a great movie on a big screen, and you sit slouching, looking up. Sitting like this causes the position of your neck to arch backward to keep your eyes on the show. This position of holding your head up, with your eyes looking up, is a deviation. You’re slumped. When you later try to correct your posture by tucking your chin, those very muscles and fascia on the back of your neck can feel painful or irritated.

Quick fix: How to tell if your head is too far forward

Here is a quick and easy assessment to see if you have forward head. You can also do this alignment check at any time during the day to see if you are practicing good head carriage and posture.

  • Sit on the edge of a chair. With your index finger, find the part of your cheekbone that protrudes outward most, just below your eye. Gently place your index finger there.
  • With an imaginary line, place your other index finger directly below your top finger, on your collarbone. They should be vertically aligned.
  • If the end of the finger on your cheekbone is ahead, your head is too far forward

Tennis ball rejuvenation

A tennis ball is a great inexpensive tool to help you loosen up tight sore muscles. Lying down, place a tennis ball on one side of your neck, and move around a little to find a sore spot. Once there, try to breath and relax on that particular spot. Do for one minute, every day, on each side of the neck. Click on video to see the exercises: vimeo.com/manage/427520367/general.

Connie Aronson is an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist at the YMCA in Ketchum. Learn more at www.conniearonson.com.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_2a3367a6-ac2e-11ea-b3ee-d73273a6435f.html

The Dead Bug, aka Happy Baby, is a core move you should be doing

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The Dead Bug helps train the core muscles to be strong and enhance spinal stability.

Obtaining a strong core can be surprisingly easy. Even better, there are excellent exercises that you can do lying on your back, using a simple band as a progression. One of the best exercises taught by strength and team coaches, yoga teachers, Pilates instructors and the sports medicine community is the Dead Bug, also known as Happy Baby. The base move is an isometric bracing action, as if you’re readying to take a punch to the belly, which promotes core stability and strength in your torso. Progressions or regressions are then tailored to your abilities and fitness level.

In Dead Bug, the reciprocal arm and leg patterns, like a dying bug on the ground, resemble motor skills like walking, running and swimming. (Or a happy baby lying in a crib, arms and legs akimbo)

The key muscles you work during the Dead Bug primarily focus on the core musculature, the powerhouse of the body. Picture the muscles forming its structure of floor, walls and ceiling. This includes the erector spinae, the deep low back muscle known as multifidus, hip adductors, rectus abdominus and the internal and external obliques. Exercises like this enhance spinal stability by training the deep postural muscles that protect you while you play the sports that you enjoy. Core stability, or trunk stiffness, allows you to transfer force to your limbs so that you throw, strike, kick, push, swing or run better. In other words, all motions are generated from the core and are translated to the extremities.

Our nervous system prefers to move with the most efficiency at all times. If your core is weak, most likely your brain will want to make it easy for you, and compensate. But over time, the compensation will create greater degrees of wear and tear. For example, slouching and leaning on handles on a stair climber or treadmill will make it much easier. But the wear and tear is more likely to be around your neck and shoulders. This can result in even worse posture, as a weak core encourages slumping, which tips you forward and off balance.

It’s often thought that repetitive flexion and extension exercise, like the good old sit-up, are a good way to train the core. But these muscles are rarely used in this way because they are more often used to brace while stopping motion. Researchers found that disc injuries can develop through even low-compressive forces with excessive bending and extending. An isometric exercise like the Dead Bug helps train the core muscles to brace under heavy loads, which helps stabilize the spine and in turn prevents buckling.

Dead Bug/Happy Baby

Start by lying on your back. Your spine should not be arched or flattened. Draw the abdominals in to assume the neutral position.

Reach your arms up. Lift your legs off the floor, holding a 90-degree angle at your hips and knees.

Move your arms back and forth (like a baby reaching up to play with a mobile) Duration: 30 seconds. Progression: Extend your arms and legs towards the floor, creating longer levers to increase the level of difficulty. Click on the video to see more progressions: vimeo.com/389162099.

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_9d47b746-490b-11ea-8988-9fc27539e035.html

Connie Aronson is an ACSM-certified exercise physiologist at the YMCA in Ketchum. Learn more at www.conniearonson.com.

Fix your back pain; don’t forget your glutes

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Through proper exercise, movement, and posture, you can help low back pain.

Kevin Mullins, a master instructor for Equinox Sports Club in Washington, D.C. understands low-level chronic back pain and found three recurring issues that personal trainers can address with their clients. Excess bodyweight, sedentary lifestyles, and improper exercise selection, are areas a trainer can help a client with, all factors having a correlation to low back pain. It is estimated that over 84 % of the population will experience an episode of LBP, from children to the elderly, at some time during life.

As well, age, stress, occupational factors, lack of flexibility or hyper-mobility, sports, postural habits, and smoking are other contributing factors.

Recovering from low back pain is a long complex road. If you are in pain, but not dealing with any diagnosed or diagnosed medical issue, you fall into the category of mechanical low back pain, or LBP.

Unlike a car, says Dr. McGill, one of the most widely respected spine researchers in the world, where you change one thing and it’s fixed, fixing a back is different. Back pain is more complicated and is much more than just fixing one part. Because, McGill notes, it comes down to cold hard science.

How the  spine functions and it’s relationship the rest of the body is the key to being free of back pain. Through proper exercise, movement, and posture, even disc bulges can be made less painful, and usually pain-free, he notes. 

Of course it’s hard to stick to a program if you are in pain. You lose the very conditioning that could help treat LBP, or even more frustrating, gain unwanted weight.That extra weight is the number one reason clients turn to a trainer, with or without low back pain. Healing starts to occur when you keep the bigger picture in mind; a good diet,adequate sleep, and a matched activity/ training program.

Tip #1 The Big Picture 

A traditional strength training can improve strength and muscle mass. Overall body strength as well as a daily walking regime are important part of a client’s program to become free of back pain.

Tip #2  Bend at the hips, rather than the spine 

There is a direct correlation between posture and pain. You can reduce episodes of back pain by reminding yourself to bend at the hips, which is a ball and socket joint, not the back. The spine does bend, but repeated spine bending, whether it’s picking up a weight in the gym, or swinging a kettlebell, could eventually lead to delaminations in the layers of the discs. Someone swinging a kettlebell, along with their back, instead of stabilizing the spine while doing so, to protect the spine, risks further trauma to an already sensitive back. When you’re performing squats, for example, sink your hips back towards your heels, like sitting onto a low park bench. Keep your eyes forward. Use your hips rather than round your back.

Tip #3  Rethink the core 

To enhance back fitness, you need a strong focus on core strength, as theses muscles play a protective role. The internal and external obliques, transverse and rectus abdominals, and the erector spinae are arranged around the spine and act as guy wires to allow the spine to control movement, bear loads  and facilitate breathing. But all too often you see good athletes and gym members entirely focused on just the rectus abdominis, commonly known as the “6 pack”. If we go back to our car analogy, focusing on only one part won’t solve back pain.

The core musculature extends to the entire body,  from the upper back down to the pelvis, not just the 6 pack.The lats, trapezius, the gluteals, hamstrings, hip flexors and inner and outer thighs all have an impact on the spine. 

Typically what happens with someone experiencing low back pain, is that that pain hasn’t allowed them to adequately train. The outcome is weaker core and gluteal muscles. This is where science comes in.

To see how important the glutes are for strength, try this exercise; Stand on one leg and balance. Then sink your hips back slightly, behind your heel, and see how much more stable standing on one leg feels. This is a great demonstration of the role the gluteals play regarding core strength.

Your progression, with an awareness on good movement patterns, including planks, back rows, squats and bridges, for example, should be aimed at strengthening more and more of your whole body, back to health.

( edited )https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_d44c4e26-d581-11e9-bddf-b7175436d170.html
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Good posture is relaxed, not forced

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Wouldn’t it be nice if our posture was always perfect, vertical and symmetrically balanced? Yet as in life, it’s never that way. When it comes to our posture, many of us tilt, shift, slump, and bend, and it can feel like an uphill battle against the gravitational field of the earth. Yet if your goal is to improve your posture and have a healthy spine, we want to continually practice healthy movement habits. We all have some imbalances, and old habits. Tensing your shoulders, holding your breath, or a forward head are counterproductive not only in weight training, but in any sport.  Tomas Myer in his book Anatomy Trains, writes that everyone has a story, and good stories always involve some imbalance.

Good posture is relaxed, not forced.

Good posture is an easy upright alignment, where the body weights of your head, chest, and pelvis are poised one atop the other, like a stack of colorful wooden building blocks. The spine’s “ home-base” is it’s natural neutral position, where it is in the least stressed position.


The ease of good posture allows for its’ three natural curves; the neck, or cervical spine, the mid-back, or thoracic spine, and the low back, or lumbar spine. Standing or sitting up straight allows for the presence of each of these three natural curves. Beyond looking symmetrical though, there are copious muscles and connective tissue webbing working to support the spine. It isn’t a freestanding pillar, writes Dr. Stuart McGill, Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo and author ofBackMechanic.  Instead, he says, think of it more like a radio tower, a tall metallic structure stabilized by guy-wires that are connected to the ground.  The guy-wires act in the same way that the network of muscles and ligaments that surround our spinal columns do, providing strength and support.

Reminding yourself to pull your shoulders back is only part of the posture picture. Alignment is dynamic, neurologically adaptive, and certainly has an emotional component. Finding out where your muscle tension lives, your neck, for example, is helpful to find that particular pattern that causes the trouble in the first place. It’s known by the “ everything-connects-to-everything-else principle. “ It helps to understand which muscles are shortened or tight, or which emotions might be contributing to that feeling, and how that affects the whole body. 

Using imagery to improve spinal alignment

Using imagery can help you experience an incredible release of muscle tension. The Franklin Method uses imagery metaphorically, and is helpful if you are unfamiliar with anatomy. Here are some images from Eric Franklin’s book Dynamic AlignmentThrough Imagery, to try to help improve your spinal alignment. You just might discover a very fixable imbalance.

Lighting designer aligns the spine (lying, sitting, or standing):

1.Visualize the spine as a chain of spotlights. Turn on all the lights and observe their focal directions. If they shine in many confused directions, adjust them so that they all focus in the sagittal plane. Now adjust them so that they shine with equal brightness.

Head on geyser

2. Imagine your central axis to be a waterspout or geyser. Your head floats effortlessly on top of this column. Visualize your shoulders and your body as the water falls back down to the ground. Allow your head to bob on the top of the column of water. As the geyser become stronger, your head is buoyed upward. Let the power of the water increase the height of your head.


https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_aa648d9e-5188-11e9-9360-1381d385e740.html