Episode 44: Fix Back Pain With These 5 Types of Exercises
Hey there! 👋 I'm Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains), personal trainer and host of the Coaching Corner podcast.
In this episode, I'm sharing 5 ways to alleviate back pain by strengthening your core and improving your posture. Poor posture and weak core muscles can lead to common injuries such as disc problems and muscle strains, especially as you get older. But you can reduce the risk of these things by doing core-strengthening exercises like:
Spinal stability (planks, bird dogs, dead bugs, & balance training)
Spinal flexion & extension (cat-cows, crunches, supermans)
Thoracic rotation (t-spine rotation, woodchops, twist crunches)
Hip extension & glute-strengthening exercises (bridges, kickbacks, hip thrusts)
In addition to exercising the muscles around your spine, it's also important to be aware of your posture throughout the day. Maintaining an active lifestyle can also improve your core strength and posture. For more detailed workout plans and exercise tutorials, check out my website jaydigains.com, and my YouTube channel.
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Jayd (00:00):
It does take time and practice to fix your posture and put yourself in better alignment, but it is so well worth the work continuing to stand or sit with poor posture, especially if you're putting your spine under load by carrying weights can put you at risk of an injured disc or some kind of a muscle or soft tissue strain. These are all super common injuries, especially for people as they get older. So if you have poor posture, now is the time to start working on it. You can improve it, but it takes practice and it takes deliberate exercise.
(00:42)
Hey there. Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I've created this podcast to share some of the tips and wisdom that I've picked up through my 10 years as a fitness coach and personal trainer. In today's episode, we're talking all about how to improve your core strength and improve your posture. Now, this is one of the most important things and one of the first things that you should work on when you are at the beginning of your fitness journey. But even for intermediate and advanced exercises, it's incredibly important to continue to emphasize working on your core strength and improving your posture as you get stronger and fitter. Now, before we get into the episode, make sure to head over to my website jaydigains.com or Jayd harrison fitness.com and sign up for my email list there. You'll get notified anytime there's a new podcast episode, and I'll also send you notifications whenever I post new posts to the Gains Club membership site. You can sign up for the Gains Club membership site right from my website where you'll get exclusive training tips, nutrition tips, recipes, meal plans and training programs, and I update this every single month. Just go to jaydigains.com, J-A-Y-D-I-G-A-I-N-S.com, and without further ado, let's get into the episode.
(01:57)
Maintaining a strong core and good posture is one of the most important and foundational aspects of having a well-rounded physique and a good level of strength. It's essential to maintain strength in the muscles in your torso to keep a healthy back and reduce your risk of injury, as well as your risk of developing chronic pain in your back, neck and shoulders. Weakness or tightness in any of these areas can cause discomfort, tension, chronic pain, and can increase your risk of injury. How many people do you know who throw their backs out as they get older? Just doing simple activities like reaching down to the floor to pick something up when they've dropped it? I know people who have thrown their backs out just by putting their pants on in the morning. It's a very common injury and it often is the result of having a weak core or weak back muscles and poor posture and alignment.
(02:52)
It's also a factor of not having good solid movement patterns and ability to hip pinch and properly safely pick up from the floor. It's also not uncommon for people to injure their backs while exercising. This is especially true for people who are really focused on adding more weight to the bar for their back squats or for their deadlifts, and they keep adding more weight past the point that their core and their upper body strength can really handle and maintain a nice rigid torso. Now, back injuries are no joke. They can put you out of commission for a long period of time. Slipped discs, pulled muscles in the back or misalignments of your spine are all major injuries that affect almost everything that you do every day. Having a healthy back is something that a lot of people kind of take for granted until they get injured.
(03:43)
Now, it is one of the most common ways to get injured, but it is also very preventable. You can greatly reduce your risk of hurting your back by maintaining a strong core like your abdominals, your obliques, your erector spina, and your transverse abdominis, as well as your upper back muscles like your lats, your traps, and your external shoulder rotator muscles. Developing those muscles will allow you to maintain your spine in alignment while you're moving or picking something up from the floor or doing some kind of heavy exercise like loaded squats or deadlifts. So today I'm going to give you a few tips and recommendations for exercises that you can do to strengthen your core and improve your posture. Before we get into the practical tips and exercises that you can do to improve your posture, let's talk about what good posture is. Good posture is the ability to stand with your shoulders right over your hips and your spine.
(04:36)
Maintaining a natural neutral curve, your hip tilt should be neutral, not anterior or posterior. The way that you can tell the difference between a posterior and anterior pelvic tilt is to think of your hips as a bowl of water. For an anterior pelvic tilt, you would be tipping the water out forward in front of you. So for an anterior pelvic tilt, you usually will see someone who looks like they're sticking their butt out. I having a DHD and hypermobility often stand like this. It's a very common way to stand for people with a DHD, so it's something that I have to pay particular attention to because standing like this and lifting like this can lead to lower back strain and also slipped discs. So what we want to practice is a neutral pelvic tilt where the water isn't spilling out forward or back. The posterior pelvic til is probably what you experience when you're sitting at your computer for work where the water would be spilling out behind you and your hips are kind of coming forward.
(05:35)
What we want to see is that neutral pelvic tilt where the water wouldn't be spilling out at all. Now, a great way for you to kind of tell where your pelvic tilt is naturally in your posture is to take video of you standing at the side facing profile and then practice exaggerating, tilting your hips forward and back, thinking of that water splashing back behind you or splashing forward, and you want to do that enough to the point where you feel like holding onto your hips, you're able to get the water level, and once the water is level, then that tells you that you're at a neutral pelvic tilt. Now, if you normally spend most of your time in an anterior pelvic tilt or a posterior pelvic tilt, this might actually feel like you are exaggerating, tilting your hips the other way. It takes time and practice to get your hips to a neutral pelvic tilt most of the time, but it is something that you'll need to be mindful of.
(06:37)
So for assessing your posture, whether it's your pelvic tilt that you're looking at or the alignment of your spine, or whether your shoulders are rounded forward and back, I recommend taking video or picture of you standing from a profile side so that you can see the side of your body. Now, while we want the hips to be right underneath the shoulders, the shoulders themselves should be back and down, and your arm should be at a slight external rotation in the shoulders. Standing like this may feel very unnatural to you if you spend a lot of time with your shoulders rounded forward, your hips tilted and your spine rounded forward or back. It does take time and practice to fix your posture and put yourself in better alignment, but it is so well worth the work continuing to stand or sit with poor posture, especially if you're putting your spine under load by carrying weights, can put you at risk of an injured disc or some kind of a muscle or soft tissue strain.
(07:36)
These are all super common injuries, especially for people as they get older. So if you have poor posture, now is the time to start working on it. You can improve it, but it takes practice and it takes deliberate exercise. So now let's take a look at some of the exercises that you can do to improve your posture and improve your core strength to reduce your risk of injury and chronic pain. Now, the first kind of exercise that you should do to help improve your core strength and your posture is to practice what are called core stability exercises. These are exercises where you're challenged to hold your spine and your torso in alignment in that anatomical stance or in that good posture while your muscles are working under load. So a good example of this would be planks either center planks or side planks where you're holding your body up in a position either on your hands or elbows and then on your toes or on your knees.
(08:27)
The challenge here is to keep your spine in alignment by pressing actively away from the floor and not sinking into your shoulders, and also keeping your hips from sinking down or coming up too much. I recommend holding these positions for anywhere between 15 and 60 seconds. You can do these as part of your priming exercises, the beginning or warmup of your workout, or you can integrate them into other parts of the workout. Another favorite exercise for core stability for me and my clients is the bird dog. The bird dog can be done either as a hold for an extended period of time, like 15 to 30 seconds, or you can also do it for reps for the bird dog. You begin in an all force position and practice alternating lifting your opposite arm and opposite leg in a straight line from your hand through your hips to your foot.
(09:14)
While you're holding this position, the goal is to keep your shoulders and your hips level with the floor. So you'll have to really engage your transverse ados, your abdominals, your erector spina, as well as the muscles in your hips and in your shoulders. Now you can hold this position for 30 seconds or more and then switch to the other side and hold it, or you can practice alternating side to side about two seconds up and two seconds down to each side. I usually recommend my clients do somewhere between eight and 15 reps to both sides. Another favorite exercise for core stability that I have my clients do is called the dead bug. This exercise is a great way to strengthen your abdominals in the front of your torso. This exercise is basically the opposite of the bird dog. It's the same movement, a range of motion.
(09:58)
It's just that you're facing up on the floor with your back on the floor, your hands and your knees up towards the ceiling. From this position, you'll alternate dropping your opposite side leg and opposite side arm to form a straight line before switching to the other side. Now, if it's too much for you to have your leg straight dropping down, you can also perform a modified version of this exercise by keeping your knees bent and just tapping your toes to the floor when you drop your leg. So if you experience any back pain while doing this exercise, know that this is a modification that you can use now for both the bird dog and the dead bug. If you want to take these exercises up a notch, you can add additional resistance by holding some lightweights in your hand. I usually recommend starting with the lightest weight that you have on hand, which could be a three pound, five pound dumbbell on both sides.
(10:46)
Keep it light here because a little bit goes a long way. You can also add a resistance band around your feet to give a little bit more resistance to the legs as you perform this exercise. And the challenge for both of these exercises, the bird dog and the dead bug, is to keep your spine in alignment while your legs and arms are moving. You can use this to develop core stability. I also like to use these exercises for my intermediate and advanced exercises at the beginning of their workouts to help fire up their core so that they can brace better during the heavier or more challenging exercises later in the workout. Now, it's also important to practice developing your spinal mobility, which help to strengthen the muscles in your torso and also improve your flexibility in the different types of movements of the spine. Our spines are incredibly flexible and they have a lot of different movement patterns.
(11:33)
Flexion and extension is the ability of the spine to arch forward and back. Exercises that practice This are things like the cat cow stretch sequence where you're on all fours on the floor and you practice tucking your chin, tucking your hips, and rounding your spine up like a cat. Alternating that with arching your back the other way where you drop your belly button down towards the mat or the floor, lift your eyes and lift your hips. Alternating between spinal flexion and extension is a great way to strengthen your abdominals as well as the erector spin a muscles in your back. It also helps to loosen up tight muscles in your torso that may be limiting your mobility or causing chronic pain. Thoracic rotation is also another really important movement pattern to practice. This will strengthen your obliques in your latus doci muscles as well as your trapezius muscles in your upper back.
(12:23)
Having good thoracic rotation will help to improve your posture, especially in your upper back. It'll also allow you to more safely perform exercises like rows, chest presses, and deadlifts. A great exercise to improve your thoracic rotation include things like what I call the quaded T-spine rotation, where you start on all fours, bring your fingertips to your temples with your elbow bent, and then practice exhaling as you twist to bring your elbow up towards the ceiling. The goal here is to try to stack your shoulders and twist as much as possible, and then inhale to return back to your starting position. I usually recommend that my clients do somewhere between eight and 12 repetitions per side here. Other good exercises for thoracic rotation include seated wood shops using a band or a cable machine, but you can also do just simple seated rotations. Flexion extension and rotation are the key movement patterns to practice for improving your core strength and for improving your posture.
(13:20)
That's why I include a lot of these types of exercises in my beginner level programs when I'm trying to build up core strength for my clients, but I also include them at the beginning of the workout for my intermediate and advanced clients to help them to improve and maintain their spinal strength and mobility. Now, if you tend to have a tight lower back, it likely is due to having poor posture like we talked about before, having a posterior pelvic tilt or an anterior pelvic tilt when you're sitting or standing can often lead to tightness and strain in the lower back. So ways that you can relieve this pain and also practice putting your body in good alignment are things like the pelvic tilts that I talked about before. I actually recommend my clients do pelvic tilts at the beginning of their workouts as part of their priming and warmup, especially if they tend to have problems with lower back pain.
(14:11)
This helps them to not only loosen up tight muscles in their lower back, but it also helps them to become more aware of their pelvic tilt so that when they're doing their heavier exercises later on, they are more likely to be able to control their pelvic tilt and reduce their likelihood of getting injured or straining their backs. The cat cow stretch on all fours is a great way to loosen up the tightness in your lower back if you have lower back pain. But you can also do a standing or laying on the floor knee to chest stretch, which can help loosen up your hip flexors and lower back child's pose is one of the best exercises for loosening up the back if your knees and your ankle mobility allow. Now, in addition to strengthening your core muscles, it's also important to strengthen your glutes. The gluteus maximus muscles are responsible for hip extension, which is in part how you hold your body upright.
(15:07)
So if you have a tendency to struggle in holding your body upright, if you have that forward rounded posture, strengthening your glutes through exercises like bridges, squats, deadlifts, step ups, are all great ways for you to strengthen your glutes and improve your posture over time to take your core stability up a notch, it's really important to also practice balance training exercises, balance training exercises, force your body's muscles to engage, to help keep your body stationary while you're standing on one leg or if you are in some kind of other balancing position. So for this reason, I really like to include balance training exercises during the first block of every program that I write for my clients, and it's also a really important type of exercise for my beginner level programs. Good examples of balance training exercises are literally just standing on one leg. I usually progress my clients from a level one balance where their weight is on one leg and they have their toes of the other leg on the ground, level two, where they practice lifting the toes up just to get comfortable with standing on one leg, and then level three, where they actually lift the knee up high to further challenge their balance.
(16:16)
So just standing in an unstable stance also can help to develop your core stability. Good examples of these would be things like the staggered stance or standing in a high lunge position while you perform some other exercise with weights for your arms. All of these help to reinforce the engagement of your core muscles, their ability to keep your body stationary and in good alignment to improve your posture. So for these reasons, I include these types of exercises in every single beginner level program that I write for my clients, and I also include them in a lot of my intermediate and advanced exercise programs to help reinforce a strong core and solid posture for my clients. Now, keep in mind that I do have a lot of downloadable programs on my website. You can go to jaydigains.com and click on workout plans in the top menu.
(17:05)
Each of these plans includes a guide for how to do the workouts and exercise tutorial videos for each exercise where I demonstrate how to perform the exercise. You can see a lot of my exercise tutorial videos on my YouTube channel as well where I post every week a handful of exercises that you can use to improve your strength or mobility. Many of the exercise tutorial videos that I create though are exclusive to my training programs. You can also sign up for one of my six month programs that are delivered through the A BC Trainer Rise app. This is the app that I use to manage my personal training clients and to deliver ongoing programming for people who subscribe. You can find information for that on my website as well by clicking on training app in the top menu. Now, here are a few more tips for improving your core strength and your posture.
(17:50)
One is try to become more aware of your posture throughout the day. If you have a tendency to round yourself forward while you're working at your computer or standing around, become more aware of how you're standing and start to practice correcting yourself and putting your body back into proper alignment. Whenever you notice that you are rounding forward or that your pelvic tilt is forward or back, just practice resetting your body. The more that you practice resetting your body, the easier it'll be for you to do this without even thinking about it. At the same time, you want to also do this while you're exercising. When you're exercising, always be thinking about how you are holding your body. Are you standing with good alignment? This is another great way to help reinforce the movement pattern of holding yourself with good posture, and it will also further strengthen the muscles that hold your body up in good posture.
(18:43)
Another thing to keep in mind is that the more you sit and the more that you are stationary, the more likely it is that your posture and your core strength will decline. So try to get into the habit of moving regularly, which is good for so many other reasons. In addition to helping your posture, you can set a timer on your phone or on your watch to get you up and moving every hour or every two hours, or you can set for yourself a daily steps goal. Do something that encourages you and reminds you to get up and moving because the more you move, the stronger you will be and the better your posture will be.
(19:21)
Thank you so much for watching. If you are on YouTube or listening to this podcast, don't forget to subscribe to my channel or to follow the podcast wherever you are so that you get notified anytime I drop a new episode. Again, I'm Jayd Harrison, aka Jaydigains, and I'm so happy to have had you here. I hope that you found this information helpful, and I look forward to hearing from you. Reach out and let me know what you think of the podcast. You can leave a comment in the video comments below if you're watching on YouTube, or you can come and join me live while I'm live on my Twitch channel, Twitch tv slash JD Gaines on Tuesdays and on other days throughout the week. As I have time, I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day, wherever you are, and that you're taking good care of yourself. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, take care.
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