Don't Be Scared of Strength Training Your Back
Strengthening the muscles surrounding your spine is important to longterm back health
One of the things we fail miserably at is training our spine. We seem to avoid it like the plague. We’re conditioned to fear doing anything with our spine, to the detriment of our health and longevity.
Building a healthy strong back takes work just like any other muscle group. We spend our entire life being told “don’t use your back” and “keep a neutral spine” and that’s so unfortunate, because it leaves us weak and unable to control a major element of our body.
We are told that we should do planks and maintain a stable position, but we never do anything in a plank.
I’m not saying stop planking. I think it’s a useful exercise.
Spinal Health: Move Your Spine More Daily
All too often we think that our spine is some fragile thing that shouldn’t be moved at all. Because of this, we neglect to train it at all. When thinking of our spine, we should consider the fact that there is musculature associated with the spine which helps those bones articulate. If we do not access those muscles and learn to contract them, then we a…
However, I don’t think it’s doing what most people think it’s doing.
Where is the progressive loading necessary for improving muscle and connective tissue strength?
Where are the other elements of spinal movement that need strengthening?
Your spine is meant to flex, extend, laterally flex and rotate. But we get none of those during static exercises.
Those other spinal movements need to be challenged in order to improve strength and resilience.
In the video below, I demonstrate a couple ways you can consider loading your spine.
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