Tired of Having a "Bad Back?"
A handful of thoughts from a Personal Trainer.
Why do so many people have back issues? Well, I’m going to attempt to try and answer this question as simply and succinctly as possible. Here we go.
Mainly, humans move in ways they should not. Humans stand and sit and walk and workout in all the wrong ways. Moving well is something that babies and toddlers do quite naturally, but adults…not so much. Modern life, technology, lack of correct exercise, sitting in chairs for extended hours, stress and poor diet can all lead to incorrect posture which in turn can lead to….a bad back. Often one bad habit feeds on another until posture is so compromised that people will either be in constant pain, go get surgery or come and see someone like me.
I had a client named Yves who came to me with severe low back pain. He had gone in for back surgery a few years prior, but when he woke up from his surgery he found out that the doctor had operated on the wrong vertebra! When the doctor then offered to re-do the surgery on the correct vertebra, Yves said NO! and decided to try strength training instead.
Even though Yves was an avid biker, he worked at a desk all day (so he sat for his job and sat for his exercise) and he had zero core strength. In fact, his core was so weak he couldn’t do a plank pose or a squat without serious pain. Luckily, he was very driven to learn how to cultivate strength in his core, glutes and upper body. Fast forward to today- my client is not only strong and pain-free, but he has installed a full gym in his home office! Yves works out regularly on his own and only visits me for occasional tune ups.
Here is my advice: before you agree to back surgery- ask yourself (and your doctor) this important question: can you possibly fix it yourself? Sometimes the answer may be no. But, my guess is that more than half of all back surgeries could have been avoided with some simple strength training and yoga.
Working out with weights is a great solution for a lot of back troubles. But you MUST train with a trainer who is really good at two things:
Programming the right exercises for your issues.
Offering cues and solutions that bring you into proper posture while exercising.
There is nothing more dangerous than adding exercise equipment (like dumbbells) to posture that is already compromised. Picture this: if you have crappy posture, and then you load that crappy posture with 20 extra lbs. of weight, what do you think is going to happen? OUCH!
Back pain is common, yes. But it shouldn’t be! With patience, commitment and a good trainer, you (like Yves) could have a really good chance of taking care of your back pain without going under the knife. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Feel free to ask me any questions and have a beautiful week.