Patriot Health Digest
Strength coach and fitness guru Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. has frequently demonstrated stretches and mobility-centered workouts on his Athlean-X youtube channel that can help people stay safer and injury-free while training. In this video, Cavaliere reveals his technique for preventing lower back pain and damage.
“If your hips are not strong, or your muscles around the hips, your glutes, are not strong, then the lower back attempts to do the work needed, and that is a problem,” he says. “We want to ensure your lower back is stable and strong.”
His technique for keeping a strong lower back? Something called the reverse hyper-extension, a lower-body exercise which is done by facing down at the edge of your bench or your bed, and extending your lower body. “The reason why I do this is to encourage you to do it every day because you need a stronger lower back; your muscles are probably not strong enough,” he says. “Posturally, we make them go through a lot.”
This power, he adds, has to go from the bottom up—literally, starting with your glutes: “Squeeze your glutes together first, into an extension, and go up the using your lower back. Feed it from the bottom upward.”
He recommends doing 1 set of good quality reps during the morning, and another set later on in the day. “As you get more of these good quality repetitions, I guarantee you, if you do have back pain that is caused by muscular weakness, your issues will vanish.”
And of course we agree with the Youtube fitness guru. The lower back muscle is an often ignored muscle that is abused by many hours of sitting at a computer or tv and from the fact that many people do not understand how to exercise and target the muscle to fix these issues. There is also the fact that the muscle is not considered one of the “sexy” muscles that people often target to improve their appearance. Yet, your back strength is a fundamental measurement of your health and very important for healthy aging.
Author: Scott Dowdy
