There’s a long held myth that our levels of low back pain are directly attributable to western culture and sitting at a desk for eight hours a day. Suggesting manual workers, farmers for example, are better off. Even medics, tend to assume that staying active in this way – bending, lifting, carrying - is better for muscular skeletal or low back health. But is it? I’m not so sure.

In this video I’m taking a look at some of the studies done of people in Africa and Asia, who carry huge loads on their back or perform work bending over from the hip in the paddy fields for hours a day. And the impact this has on their spinal health and the incidence of low back pain. After all, they don’t have ergonomic advice given to them, they just stand or lift how they’ve been taught by the generations before them.

So are they really better off, simply because they’re moving all day and not sedentary?

Published research into manual labour in lower...

Have you been told you should be doing strengthening exercises for your weak lower back?

Before you do, read on to find out why strengthening lower back muscles in the traditional way should be avoided, and why there’s a better way when it comes to choosing exercises for low back strength.

Often when we talk about rehabilitation and muscle strength, we look at individual muscles and what we can do to put force through them to build them up. But it’s time we took a wider perspective on it.

I came across this quote from Gray Cook’s book, Movement:

“It's common to seek stabilisation programs that attempt to train stabilisers like prime movers, using concentric and eccentric movements. This assumes that strengthening the stabilisers will cause them to stabilise more effectively.  Common strengthening programs are applied to muscles with a stabilisation role which will increase the concentric strength but have little impact on the timing and recruitment which...

Three beginner exercises for core endurance training

Core endurance is the ability to hold a position, or to use a muscle, or group of muscles, over a period of time while resisting fatigue.

There are three basic exercises that I always recommend for building core endurance. These are the plank, the side plank and a single leg bridge. Let’s just say your goal is to hold a plank for a minute, a side plank for 45 seconds and a single leg bridge for 45 seconds each side.

Of course you won’t necessarily be at that stage at the moment, that’s where we want to get you to. That’s a kind of marker in the sand, if you like.

You might think that the first step would be to hold the exercises for as long as you can, ensuring you have the correct position and technique and gradually building up to the desired durations above.

But actually, we find that’s not necessarily the best way, or the most efficient, to go about increasing core endurance.

By far the best way...

Do you worry that your lower back is in pain simply because you're getting older? While this is partly true because more time has passed, there will still be specific reasons causing the discomfort.

We’ve talked, previously, about sciatica, disk bulging and herniation and various other conditions or disorders that can affect the lower back. Now, in this tutorial, I talk about how these injuries can occur. So you can understand better, and identify quicker, any movements or postures that might be causing damage to your low back. Making it easier to rehabilitate.

What causes lower back injury?

Firstly, it’s important to note there may be genetic factors at play here. Things that have impacted parents or other relatives could give you a clue as to what’s going on. Alternatively, there might have been one traumatic event or injury that has taken place. Something like a car accident or fall from a height that’s created a crack in a vertebra, or a disk bulge.

But...

Do you have a hyperlordotic lumbar spine, and would you like to flatten that curve? In this tutorial I talk about three or four steps you can go through to be able to go from a hyperlordotic curve to a normal lordotic curve.

Clue: it’s about more than just stretching.

What do you need to know about the anatomy of the spine?

Probably the most important muscle in relation to the lumbar spine is the psoas muscle. Psoas, sometimes called psoas major, originates from the lumbar spine – lumbar vertebrae L1-L5 and a little bit from T12. It also joins to the diaphragm and goes through the pelvis, joining the inside of the leg.

I explain this in more detail in the video tutorial.

Vitally important for our stability, the psoas literally helps to hold our top and bottom together. But it’s because of where the psoas originates and inserts, that this is the muscle that ends up pulling on the lumbar spine, causing it to go into a hyperextended position.

Changing (and...

The McGill Big 3 are a set of exercises I talk about a lot. But they are often misunderstood. Sometimes what I see people using them for is a little different to what I believe they should be used for.

 Let me explain...

What are the McGill Big 3?

I run through these with a demo in the video above. But in summary: 

1. Arguably the most well known ‘Big 3’ exercise is the bird dog: getting onto all fours and raising alternate arms and legs. This position and movement acts mainly on the posterior chain of muscles - the glutes, the lats, the longissimus, iliocostalis, thoracal lumber etc. 

2. Second is the side plank, which works more on the lateral musculature, as well as the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus - particularly when you hold this position.
3. Finally, the modified curl up. Laying on the back, this is a simplified version of a curl up, where we maintain position of the lower back, lifting only the shoulder blades. We then hold this position so we feel...

If you, like many of my clients, suffer from low back pain, but still want to be able to develop core strength, stability and endurance, then Bird Dog could be an important addition to your routine. In the tutorial above I talk about why it’s so important as well as some of the ways I see people getting it wrong.

Why is Bird Dog important for low back rehab?

Bird Dog is useful and important for 3 reasons: 

1. It's helping you develop something I call joint awareness.
2. It's a high stability exercise – developing good quality stability.
3. It's a low compression exercise - so it doesn’t put a huge amount of stress on the spine.

What do we mean by joint awareness?

If you want to be technical, we should be calling this proprioception, but I just want to keep it simple here. That’s why I’m calling it joint awareness. This means what is your body doing when you ask it to perform specific exercises? Where are you feeling the movements? Are you...

Opinions differ when it comes to the subject of whether back extensions are a good exercise for strengthening the lower back. In fact, I don’t often prescribe the back extension as I feel there are usually other exercises that can get you a better result.

But I’m aware there are people who don’t agree with me, so for the sake of balance, let’s look at the positives and negatives.

Performing back extensions – what are we actually trying to do

There are lots of ways of doing the back extension. One being on the floor, another with a machine. You’ll see in the tutorial video, that I demonstrate using a piece of equipment that allows me to hinge at the hips and then extend back up. This helps to activate and strengthen the lower back muscles.

In short, what we’re aiming to do with back extensions is to get the longissimus and the iliocostalis, along with other muscles of the lower back and even the glutes, to activate or come online. You...

Should you train your core dynamically - with movement, or isometrically - without movement? In the tutorial above, I explore the best core exercises, covering things like planks, deadlifts and chops. And I offer plenty of practical tips to help you put them together into a workout or programme.

Isometric versus dynamic: which is best for core exercises

First things first, isometric exercises are performed statically. You’re probably familiar with the plank, side plank and bridge. But the question is, are these types of static exercises the best ones for your core? Or should you be working in a more dynamic way.

In short, the answer is you should be doing both. But in the right way – start isometrically and only progress to more dynamic movements once you’re ready.

Why is it better to start with static exercises for your core workout?

I often talk to clients about the benefits, both physiological and psychological, of starting with isometric exercises...

Lumbar Lordosis, or an overly pronounced curve in the lower back, can cause pain, soreness and even fatigue. Often impacting day to day life. The good news is with better understanding and some practical exercises, you can live better with Lordosis in the longer term and even overcome many of the symptoms you’re experiencing. But it’s not just about stretching exercises, as you may have been lead to believe.

In the tutorial above I focus on the 3 things you need to do before you begin those exercises:

1.  Foam rolling the anterior parts of the hip

With Lordosis, it’s important to understand that the main culprit is the psoas muscle. This is the one that joins onto the spine, pulling it in to create that inward curve. The anterior pelvic tilt we see actually comes as a secondary effect, caused by your body compensating as it moves.  And this often results in tightness through the front of the hip.

This is the bit we can access with foam rollers.

...