You Don't Have a Bad Back

I blew out my back.

This was a long time ago. But it was multiple times.

One such time was jumping to a decently high box. After that, I had to hobble around, crawl to the car and lie in bed for a few days.

"What gives?" I thought. "I'm strong. Why did my back give out?"

The answer should have been obvious, but it wasn't.

Traditionally, as much as I love lifting, I was horrible about doing all the boring little things that hold us together.

Core strengthening and mobility work.

Yes they're still important.

After that initial flair up, I tried to do what a lot of people do: stretch the lower back. But the lower back is not the blame.

Why does this happen so often to so many people?

Your back isn't a problem.

It's a symptom of other problems.

You're Weak, But It's Not What You Think

What holds you together? It's your core. When people think core, they think to just do situps. Your core is in the middle of you and it helps keep you from falling over. This means your abs, your sides (obliques and QLs) and your glutes. The culprit of all of this is sitting and just sedentary living in general.

When you're born, you're super weak. The first thing that gets stronger is your center. Babies do this with deadbugs (they flap their arms and legs while lying on their backs), tummy time and crawling. There isn't a single pushup or pullup in sight. That's interesting because when it comes to bodyweight movements, we probably think "pushups and pullups." But for as mobile and in tune with their bodies as kids are, those are the last things they can do. They'll probably master the deep squat before anything else.

Anyway, after this initial strengthening phase comes…Kindergarten. We have to sit to learn for the first time in our lives. This just gets worse as we age, especially with entertainment, eating and driving. Lo and behold, a few decades pass and the same core that you worked so hard on is now weaker.

Then we want to make a change. We want to get in shape. We want to get stronger.

Valiantly, we enter a gym. We do some bicep curls or walk on the treadmill.

Nice.

But lifting?

We try a few reps of harder moves.

Maybe we even try to squat or deadlift.

Magically, our weak cores can't support all the weight we're moving. We tweak something, deem deadlifts "un-safe and totally bad," and miss out on something that could give us longevity for the rest of our years: strength training.

A real shame.

Lifting isn't the enemy.

"Heavy" lifting only hurts someone in relation to what their body is ready for.

Heavy is also relative. Yes a 405 deadlift is heavy for most people, but if someone is de-trained, isn't a 50lbs suitcase heavy as well?

You will get the results from your training with the body you bring to the table.

The solution here is to just stretch what's tight and strengthen what's weak.

Boring, but effective.

Change Your Lifestyle, Change Your Back

For a quick "upgrade" to your body, you have to realize that your daily habits play a major role.

We sit too much.

I can't stand hearing the "your back gets bad after you hit 30" thing because it's a result of decades of sitting. If you made a 5 year old sit as much as you do, wouldn't they also be prone to injury soon? They don't have this problem because they love motion so much.

As a step zero, find ways to move more through the day. Use your laptop on the ground if possible, but one great way is to try to get 10k steps per day. You actually get to use your body for at least 1 hour of accumulated time. That's 1 hour removed from sitting time.

Let's move on to all the other stuff, starting from the ground up.

Stretches

I was going to go in much more detail than I will write below, but later I'll write about handing each part of you in more detail.

For now, just stretch the following things.

• Toes/Top of the feet

• Calves

• Hamstrings

• Inner thigh (pancake stretch)

• Outside leg (piriformis)

• Quads/Hip flexors - couch stretch, atg split squat holds

• QLs (quadratus lumborum), basically the sides of your torso

How often? How much?

Until you don't feel it any more. There will never be a point in time when you don't have to work on this, but if you're in a bad spot, you're going to need more time than you need.

And don't worry about doing "too much" or being "too flexible." Just don't do a ton of stretching before a strength session since it relaxes your muscles and you'll be fine.

In the words of Jujimufu, do you really think Shaolin monks are concerned about being too flexible?

No.

Just do it and maintain your body.

Strengthen

Same deal here. There are different sides to your midsection, so train it in all 360 degrees.

• Front - L sits, deadbugs

• Back/Glutes - bridges, bird dogs, back extensions, RDLs, Jefferson curls

• Sides - QL Raises, sideways walking for the glute medius

• Inner Leg - seated good mornings or pancake pulses

• Outer - Piriformis pushups

• Calf raises and the ATG split squat needs some recognition here because if you're strong and mobile in those ranges (calves) it'll take the pressure off your back when you want to do something like a squat.

Train Your Core to Endure

I'm not going to give you rep ranges, at least not in this article.

Just know this: Your core is meant to hold you up all day. If you want your mid-section to finally "get it," you're going to have to go a bit high on the reps. I don't mean doing 100 crunches, but the rep ranges need to be high.

When it comes to the big compound lifts, you don't have to do a ton of reps for them to be effective, especially if you want to lift heavier.

Your core on the other hand, much like your calves and forearms, can take a beating. If you want to give your body a fighting chance, then don't be afraid of training them with plenty of reps and frequency.

Stretching and core training make for a wonderful "I'm bored" workout. It can act as active recovery, plus you're putting money in the bank to maintain a resilient body as we get older.

And yes, doing sets of 50 bridges or 50 deadbugs takes a while to complete.

But is it any longer than sitting for 10+ hours per day?

You'll be fine.

Go try it out.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions, feel free to respond to this newsletter.