Lower Back Pain? You’re Not Alone…
From not being able to pick up the grandkids to keeping up on vacation to simply enjoying daily life, lower back pain can be debilitating.
The real facts are:
- 80% of people will suffer through lower back pain at some point in their lifetime.
- Lower back pain is the 2nd most common reason for seeing a doctor, the 5th most common reason for being hospitalized and the 3rd most common problem behind patients who require surgery.
- Lower back pain the #1 pain related reason for suicide
At GoTimeTraining, we believe that strength training is transformational.
Instead of running away from exercise, we encourage safe and tailored options that have helped thousands of Wichitans.
Our focus is strength, endurance, mobility, neural control, technique and confidence, which all can have a dramatic effect on helping pain.
*We always encourage to speak with a medical professional before starting an exercise program.
Lower Back Pain Fixes How-To Guide
Step 1: Increase Joint Mobility
Have you ever bent over to pick up something little off the floor and then your back “goes out”?
What happened was instead of your hips rotating, poor mobility borrowed movement from your lumbar spine (low back).
It’s not supposed to move that much and therefore places a tremendous amount of stress in the lower back.
By increasing the mobility of joints surrounding your lower back, you’ll begin to notice relief.
Do this–10 minutes of the following exercises daily:
- Supine pelvic tilts
- Cat-camels
- Band distracted hip hinges
- Lower body 90/90 rotation
- Cobra push-ups
Step 2: Learn to Activate Your Core
Often, due to inactivity (sitting at work daily), the muscles within the core, especially the deep core stabilizers like Transverse Abdmonis (TVA) and Multifidi muscles, the Central Nervous Systems (brain/spinal cord) doesn’t communicate well with them.
They are not activating properly, strongly and efficiently, because they don’t have to often enough.
The core is such an important portion of the human body because it’s the first group of muscles our brain tells to work during any movement.
The next steps is to include core activation exercises and built its endurance strength.
Do this–10 minutes of the following exercises daily:
- Quadruped Draw-ins
- Bird-Dog
- Side Plank
- Curl-up
- Farmer Carries
Step 3: Wake Up Your Glutes
The glute complex comprises the largest muscle group in the entire body and has major implications in strength, performance, posture and lower back health.
Individuals with lower back pack pain tend to have trouble firing their glutes and compensate by overusing the spinal erectors (lower back muscles).
To prevent this compensation pattern from occurring it’s necessary to wake-up your glutes.
Do this–10 minutes of the following exercises daily:
- Glute Bridge
- Single-Leg Glute Bridge
- Figure 4 Single leg Glute Bridge
Most importantly the glute bridge should be included prior to training.
Once you graduate from the body weight glute bridges you should add weight. As a general recommendation, the following drills can be performed 2-3x per week.
Use moderate to heavy weights and complete 3-5 sets of 5-12 repetitions per exercise.
- Weighted Glute Bridge
- Weighted Hip Thrust
- Cable Pull Through
Lower Back Pain Fixes How-To Guide
Step 4: Maintain Correct Exercise Form
If you’re serious about fixing your lower back pain your long term focus must be proper exercise form.
Never compromise technique to add more weight.
Once you have improved mobility with the core and glutes functioning properly, you’ll need to progress to more complicated exercises.
This is typically where people with lower back pain never progress to due to fear.
Having a certified personal trainer that is smartly tailoring your training program and carefully instructing can and should help.
If you need help with lower back pain and feeling empowered with your fitness and nutrition, schedule a 10-min Intro Call with our Fitness Experts below. 👇
For more help with lower back pain be sure to read our blog on 5 Ways to a Strong Core.
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