In this tutorial, I am discussing and demonstrating the use of a kettle bell to perform a favourite dynamic core exercise for strength and stability.

What do we mean by dynamic core exercise?

Traditionally, workouts involve static exercises, allowing us to work on only one, or at least a limited number of muscle groups at the same time. Dynamic core exercises use movement patterns that engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously offering a much more efficient and effective way to train core muscles for strength and stability.

How to perform this dynamic core exercise for strength and stability?

As you’ll see in the video, this exercise involves moving the kettle bell around the body. This is known as ‘around the world’.

When you’re performing this, you’re aiming for a sort of anti-rotation movement, so you're trying to keep the body nice and solid and let your arms do the work.

You’ll feel that each position of the rotation is working the different muscles in slightly differen...

Let’s talk about the anatomy of the spine. We’re going to approach it in a, hopefully logical, way. Starting with the deepest layer – the skeleton - and then building up to discuss the role of the muscles, fascia etc.

Because if you’re struggling with issues with your low back, understanding spine anatomy is an important first step. From the lumbar spine, naturally the one I tend to talk about the most, through the thoracic and cervical areas of the spine. We’ll talk about the make up and function of this important part of the body.

Helping you to ultimately reduce the risk of further injury and find solutions to help recovery.

Understanding spine anatomy: the basics

The spine, as you probably remember from biology textbooks at school, is made up of 33 individual bones or vertebrae. These are stacked on top of one another, separated by intervertebral discs, which act as shock absorbers and prevent the vertebrae from rubbing against one another.

Surrounding this structure we have f...

The importance of maintaining and improving your bone health as you age cannot be underestimated. Here we’re looking at movements that will help to strengthen your bones, reduce fracture risk, and promote overall health.

Perfect if you know this is an area you need to focus on this year.  

Build bone density with these 3 effective exercises

1. Back squat

For this exercise I’m using a barbell. You’ll see from the video that the barbell should sit on the upper part of the back, just above the shoulder blades, not on the neck. This is important.

Take the barbell off the stack, then take a couple of steps back. That's your start position.

To perform the back squat correctly you’ll need to bend at the knees, flex at the hip and maintain a neutral posture through the spine. Don’t worry about dipping too low, just go down as far as you can, making sure to push your knees outwards as opposed to letting them collapse in.

If you’re unsure, watch my demo.

Why is a back squat particularly...

There’s a surprising side effect that could be holding you in Lordosis – something you may not have even realised.

What is it?  Internal Rotation.

Now obviously I'm exaggerating a bit. But when we go into the lordotic posture with that extended anterior pelvic tilt, one of the side effects that can come along with it, is an internal rotation of the hips. And that can have further impact down in the knee, the foot and the ankle.

When this happens it’s important to be able to open out the hip so we can get into a better external rotation, or at least ease the tight muscles that are holding us out of alignment.

So which muscles are involved?

Understanding what’s happening with the muscles when you’re in a lordotic position will help you to understand the mechanism for creating (and therefore correcting) this internal rotation side effect.

Consider the inward curvature that occurs when you’re in Lordosis. You can feel that the muscles of the lower mid-spine have become squashed, whil...

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 socio-economic countries

The first study¹ I’ll di...

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 are the essence of stabilis...

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 to build core endurance

Ins...

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 as a general rule, thes...

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 maintaining) the posture o...

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 the abdominals. This
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