Lower back muscle improvement

jdivision

Lads, I have major trouble with muscles in my lower back and am looking for a way to improve them and my core strength. I got back into fitness last year for a while but routine I was given - which was geared to improve that area -had me doing 200 crunches four days a week and 150 of the ones where you lie face down and squeeze your butt muscles to raise your upper body off the floor. I was also doing about 100 Russian twists three days a week.

My back didn't take too well to it and felt worse and worse each week (did this for around two months). Eventually that and the fact that the nearest gym to me is difficult to get to (left work around half seven, got to gym around half eight, leave at 10, get home about 10.30 and then try to eat) led to me making excuses (and they were excuses when you come down to it) and I basically gave up and went back to my bad old habits.

So now I'm planning to go back into it and wondering if the routine above was too much too quickly and if somebody could recommend some other lower back exercises that would help - my back's pretty messed up (partly frozen right shoulder, constant trouble with rumboid and subscaps on right side, locked vertebrae in lower spine) so maybe keep that in mind.

I've been improving my diet since start of year (also have only drunk alcohol once since mid-December) and an improvement's shown already and have now bought weights to use at home and an exercise bike for cardio but realise I need to improve core strength too as part of improving fitness - I used to lift a lot of weights when I was younger but overdeveloped my front and underdeveloped my back which contributed to my current back problems and basically I don't want the same thing to happen again.

My goal is basically to lose fat in my upper body (which obviously contributes to back pain) and then move to building muscle. People always ask about sleeping habits here and i don't sleep very well - bad insomnia so tend to sleep 4-6 hours a night and find it difficult to get out of bed, cardio does improve that. I wouldn't necessarily sleep more but I would be more alert getting out of bed.

Cheers for your time

BJohnson

Hi Jdivision,

I hear this sort of complaint on a regular basis - I'm a chiropractor in Galway, and low back pain is the most common thing that I treat. It's a common misconception that a sore back needs to be strengthened, but most research doesn't show a link between back strength and health. Training the muscles for endurance is the key.

Here's a great article written on the latest research involving chronic low back pain. Stuart McGill is one of the best, and here he summarizes a lot of his research:

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~mcgill/fitnessleadersguide.pdf

Of course, I'd recommend getting a proper check-up from a health care professional. There are a lot of different causes for low back pain - figuring out what's causing it is the first step in getting it better. If you need a recommendation, just let me know.

Regards,

Dr. Brian Johnson, BSc, DC
www.citychiropractic.ie

Colm_OReilly

Deadlift.

jdivision

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Deadlift.

Been meaning to start this. How far apart should your feet be at the beginning? Shoulder width?

aye

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Deadlift.

Stiff legged deadlift would work more on your lower back.
just be sure you are keeping your back straight.

Dragan

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Deadlift.

Once again i'm not entirely sure that telling someone on the net to compound movement through an obvious injury is the best advice.

OP, go get a professional to look at your back. A good recommended physio in your area!

aye

jdivision wrote: »

Been meaning to start this. How far apart should your feet be at the beginning? Shoulder width?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-O_MT72rck

The FitnessDock

BJohnson wrote: »

It's a common misconception that a sore back needs to be strengthened, but most research doesn't show a link between back strength and health.

I strongly disagree and would recommend you check out the research done by Med-X (http://medxonline.com). After years of development and testing, validated by independent research teams at the University of Florida, MedX perfected its medical Lumbar Extension machine. It has helped tens of thousands of people around the world reduce or eliminate their back pain.

I myself used one at Serious Strength, a top personal training studio in Manhattan. It's definitely the best piece of exercise equipment I've ever used. Check out http://www.seriousstrength.com/back_pain_relief.php for more details.

PAUL

BJohnson

Hi Fitness Dock,

I couldn't find any research regarding that machine on their website - have you got any links that I could check out? My biggest concern with that machine is that having the person go into forward flexion repeatedly at the start of the exercise increases the pressure on the lumbar discs. If someone has a bulge or herniation, it's going to make the situation worse. It's the same reason that full sit-ups are no longer recommended for low back pain, and why things like the golfer's lift are recommended for picking up light loads. I'm sure some people get relief from the machine, but some forms of low back pain could be seriously aggravated by it.

In lab testing the one sure-fire way that they've been able to recreate herniated discs is through repeated lumbar spinal flexion - the repetition is just as damaging as heavy lifting, creating microdamage that eventually leads to herniation.

Check out that link that I posted above - it's interesting stuff. If you can find a copy, check out his text book called Low Back Disorders: Evidence Based Prevention and Rehabilitation - it's excellent. PM me if you want to discuss it out of the forum.

Regards,

Brian

EDIT: Sorry, found the papers you were referring to. Most of McGill's work is from 1998 and onwards. I'm not sure if they are using "strength" and "spinal stability" interchangeably. Most of of the work from McGill looks at data related to increasing spinal stability through exercises targeted at the multifidus and deep extensor group, while minimizing strain on the lumbar spine. Check it out and let me know what you think.

jdivision

Dragan wrote: »

OP, go get a professional to look at your back. A good recommended physio in your area!

Been through that on and off for seven years! Never works long-term unfortunately. Temporary relief only.

pwd

you need to build all your core muscles to give the best support for your lower back - so you need to do stuff for your abs/obliques etc.

I don't know anything about good approaches when you're already injured though

jdivision

aye wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-O_MT72rck

Cheers

Racing Flat

Dear jdivision,
Impossible to give advice in terms of specific exercises without knowing the specific problem with your back. Anyone who does advise you to do an exercise without seeing you and knowing the specific problem may get lucky or may not. The reason being is that the low back pain population is not a homogenous group - it is heterogenous, some people might get pain because they are too stiff, some because they are too weak and as such cannot control the spine and so it moves too much, sometimes referred to as 'unstable' or instability. In the last 10-20 years research has shown that doing specific stabilising exercises can lead to reduced pain in people with low back pain due to specific instability disorders (a more homogenous group). Unfortunately everyone jumped on the bandwagon, health professionals, exercise teachers etc. so that doing 'core' or 'core stability' or Pilates exercises became the vogue thing to do for everyone, not only to reduce low back pain but also to improve performance. Unfortunately, these exercises even if done correctly will not do either of these things unless you have pain due to a 'weak core' or reduced performance due to a 'weak core'. Not to mention the fact that in the vast majority of cases poeple do these incorrectly anyway. There has already been a turnaround in that the original researchers are getting away from these type of exercises, it was too simplistic.

You see, even if you do have a weakness in a particular 'core muscle' they tend to get weak in a particular direction - ie your spine may be uncontrolled bending forward but okay going backwards. Hence to simply strengthen this muscle in a static position would be no good, You would need to strengthen it in the going forward direction (dynamically). And the best way to do this is through movement re-education....

Long story short, you need to see someone who know's what they are talking about and looking at, unfortunately these are few and far between as the research is always a little ahead of what goes on in the clinic.

My general advcie to you would be to lay off the specific back exercises for now, just try to do more general exercises, cardio type work etc gently initially and if you just gradually increase the workload bit by bit the low back pain may well gradually dissipate.

ApeXaviour

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Deadlift.

Seconded.

Dragan wrote: »

Once again i'm not entirely sure that telling someone on the net to compound movement through an obvious injury is the best advice.

If he wants to exercise then isolating is hardly better.

I'd say start on a nice low enough weight, make sure you get your technique correct (and keep it correct!) before you start piling on the discs (don't rush into anything). Do that with youtube videos, mirrors and this pdf

jdivision

ApeXaviour wrote: »

I'd say start on a nice low enough weight, make sure you get your technique correct (and keep it correct!) before you start piling on the discs (don't rush into anything). Do that with youtube videos, mirrors and this pdf

That would be the plan, I messed up the lower back muscles originally by lifting a person I shouldn't have while drunk. Two weeks facedown in bed taught me a lesson I'll never forget.

Racing Flat, I have a physio appointment on Wednesday and she's helped me with my feet (collapsed arches in both from messed up ankles originally) before so hopefully she'll be as good with my back. I think I have to incorporate some of that into my attempt to get get back to relative normality. Sounds like you're suggesting something like the Alexander technique? I tried a thing called amatsu before and it's been most effective for me, was told I'd be fine afterwards but it went back to normal (ie plenty of pain) after a month.

Racing Flat

jdivision wrote: »

Sounds like you're suggesting something like the Alexander technique?

No. More like determining what the individual problem is and tailoring a specific indivdualised rehabilitation programme based on that. Determining which type/direction of a motor control impairment (if any) you have and subsequently rehab would be based on this. Peter B O'Sullivan and Wim Daenkarts would be the people who have researched this, published many studies in Manual Therapy and Spine, available on PubMed or your physio may be aware of them.

The FitnessDock

Great posts Racing Flat

Colm_OReilly

Unfortunately everyone jumped on the bandwagon, health professionals, exercise teachers etc. so that doing 'core' or 'core stability' or Pilates exercises became the vogue thing to do for everyone, not only to reduce low back pain but also to improve performance. Unfortunately, these exercises even if done correctly will not do either of these things unless you have pain due to a 'weak core' or reduced performance due to a 'weak core'. Not to mention the fact that in the vast majority of cases poeple do these incorrectly anyway. There has already been a turnaround in that the original researchers are getting away from these type of exercises, it was too simplistic.

Exactly! Do you not think squatting, deadlifting, and pressing require you to keep you core tight?

As to recommending deadlifting. Everyone I've had who's said they've low back pain (usually as a result of sedentary living I might add) has tried deadlifting and found it's helped, hence the recommendation. It was 10 minutes to 5 so I didn't really have the time to go into reasons why.

Obviously, the plan the OP was on originally aggrevated his condition, so we can hardly recommend he give it another shot. These exercises were using the muscles to flex/extend the lumbar spine. A deadlift (and squats and presses) require the spine to be kept in neutral alignment, which is keeping the muscles in isometric contraction.

jdivision,

Check out the videos on deadlifting here. The alignment ones especially keep the whole movement simple.

jdivision

Thanks

cltt97

Reading this post with great interest. I've had problems with my back forever and I've tried a number of things. I'm going to a chiropractor once a month, I'm getting amatsu and all in all it sort of maintains me reasonable painfree, but I don't want to fork out money for the rest of my life. I think my main problem is posture - I've had MRIs in the past and only minor tears, nothing major. Anyways, to come to the point, I'd like to do physical work to sort out those imbalances. So I really want to go to someone who knows what type of excercises I need to do and really show me how to properly do them (don't think I'll find that in a gym). I've come across this crowd http://www.dbcireland.ie and it looks good, but if anyone has any other/better recommendations or advice it would be most welcome.