How do you make your back stronger without hurting it?
A simple, head to toe arching movement can strengthen your back, providing core support. It will also improve your sitting posture as well as stretching and opening your front body.
I see tons of videos and exercises for strengthening your core out there.
For some reason, people think that in order to strengthen your back, you have to contract your front body.
The internet is increasingly full of common wisdom that is all wrong.
Here’s the 8 top AI recommended exercises.
- lifting weights.
- working with resistance bands.
- heavy gardening, such as digging and shoveling.
- climbing stairs.
- hill walking.
- cycling.
- dance.
- push-ups, sit-ups and squats.
Of these 8, there are only 2 that I think get to the problem and don’t have much potential to hurt your back further if it is weak or strained!
Can you guess which of these exercises will strengthen your back? Climbing stairs, and walking up a hill.
Both of these activities, like the one in this video, coordinate the strength of your core body with the movement of your limbs. That makes the strength more functional and useful.
These movements invite you to look up and out, to focus above your body, and to move in that upward direction. If you are sucking in your belly, you won’t be able to do either of these things very easily.
Folks worry about your lumbar spine being over arched and that the contents of your soft front body are just kind of pouring out. They worry that the big spinal discs might also be compressed at the back and pushed out at the front.
None of this accounts for the naturally arched shape of your lumbar spine, or the lovely belly muscles that coordinate with your breathing, and keep all the organs in your torso snug and safe without extra effort.
Flattening your lumbar curve out will actually press the discs out sideways or backwards – and that happens to be the most common kind of herniation.
Frontal herniation of spinal discs is very uncommon. Nature already provided you with structural core support in that area with big, strong ligaments in the front of the spine.
Extension, and arching, is the activity that activates your back muscles and makes space for your discs. That’s the activity you want to strengthen.
I suggest beginning an arch with a clear intention, start with your eyes, and let your head extend at the atlanto-occipital joint. You do not need to worry about crunching your neck if you have a clear forward direction for your whole torso.
Lying on the floor face down, forward would be in front of you. It’s where you are looking, where you want to go.
I made this video to illustrate that forward intention as clearly as possible. If you’ve ever had an AT lesson, you have heard your teacher say “head forward and up.” That’s exactly what this video shows, just in a different relationship to gravity.
I am delighted to share yet one more way in which AI is not your best friend. Especially when it comes to your body.