Strengthening Your Posterior Chain: Back Pain

My posterior chain was something that I never really cared for when I was younger. The only thing I really did was dead lifts but other than that I was only really worried about what I could see in the mirror…my front!

I don’t really know if that was the sole reason for my back troubles today but I do know the importance of a well balanced program. I find my self more and more experimenting with new basic posterior chain exercises and seeing it’s affect on my low back pain. In this case, I have either recently started to implement them into my program or I have found immediate relief doing them.

The purpose of this article is to bring you up to speed with what I am currently doing for the health of my lower back using posterior chain (the back of the body) exercises.

Conditioning and controlling my glutes: A lot of people have issues with properly firing the posterior chain musculature. A common thing you see is people’s hamstrings firing BEFORE the glutes do with exercises like lunges, squats or basic movements like lying leg extensions or even getting up from a chair. We have overpowering hamstrings and our butts have become dormant. Before you do anything take a look at this video I found explaining a helpful tip on firing the glutes!

https://youtu.be/W9VnIhiby6w

So what about actually working the hips and posterior musculature?

I have 3 exercises that I have recently added to my program 1 of which you already know about.

Those three are:

Bird Dog (oldie but goodie)
Glute Bridge March (New)
Bear Crawl (New)

The Bird Dog should already be a daily activity if you have been reading this blog for any length of time. The bridge and crawl are new and I have recently started doing these myself

*Remember* be sure to pay close attention to any pain these exercises cause. The goal is to be pain free while doing these movements. If at any point your pain worsens stop them immediately and stick to he more basic movements like the ones I highlight here.

For the glute bridge with a march the key things I want you to remember is the position of your spine. You want to maintain a solid core contraction and a neutral spine. Use the reverse pyramid approach for these and start with a lower number (5-6 reps) then decrease with each set. You don’t want to push yourself to fatigue you want to be able to maintain control and a tight core and neutral spine the whole time. Check out the video below for some helpful hints!

How about them Bear Crawls!

When I first heard about these I wasn’t sure how they were going to help me. I literally thought these will 100% make my back worse. All I could think of is when I was younger playing around in PE class doing “bear crawls”. Well, the type of crawls you are going to be doing are way different and to be honest more challenging than you think. Key points to remember with this crawl is to move the opposite leg and arm at the same time. Your knees should never hit the ground and your spine should be neutral the entire time. You also want your hips square which means having little movement from side to side or up and down the entire time. You should literally be able to place a mug of water on your lower back and be able to complete this exercise without a drop being spilt. I have seen it done! Check out these 2 videos!

This guy has good intensions and I have nothing against his practice but look at his hips and take note of the movement. For someone with back pain that could cause the pain to get worse. Your not really building the core stiffness that we are going for here at Fitness 4 Back Pain.com There is too much movement in the hips for what we are trying to achieve.

The right way!

This is not the video I saw with the mug of water but its the exact same idea. Note the hips and control he has over his entire body while doing this exercise. It’s not about speed and how long you can do it for. Start small and when you get fatigued stop and take a rest before doing it again.