3 ways to avoid lower back pain while exercising
So you can still exercise! Try these adjustments!
Neutral spine
Cervical, thoracic and lumbar should all have slight curves. Cervical in, thoracic out, lumber in.
You should never see kinks (sharp changes) in your curvature nor should you find an area overly flat or curved.
The best way to check for this is in a mirror. Buy one of those inexpensive mirrors, $10 from Walmart or Amazon for those full body mirrors. You can always move it propped from standing to lying on your back with full visibility!
Support yourself with a wall
Especially for front loaded exercises!
Front loaded exercises means that your low back is supporting that weight, the further away from your body the weight, the more load your low back is carrying (keeps you from falling over)
Fix this by supporting your weight against a wall with relaxed knees. This will allow you to continue the exercise (and work on your gains) even when your back is not feeling its best.
Also, this doesn’t mean ignore what’s going on your back. Pain is your body’s way of letting know something is wrong. Be sure to get it checked!
Try it seated
Can work well for exercises in all planes but specifically may help with overhead exercises due to the added compression.
Most low back pain is associated to under active glute engagement. Actually, I’ve never worked on fixing someone’s low back pain without addressing the glutes on some level.
In this case, by sitting down were giving the body increased stability by placing it in a location that it feels more stable or in a position it recognizes better. Muscle recruitment is lessened when the body removes active muscles at multiple joints by decreasing the number of joints for which it is stabilizing.
If you’d like to see a video version of this article or would like more details regarding the low back or other areas of your body. Check out our You Tube Channel Here!
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