Low Back | Muscle Musts
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00:00 ♪ I'm in control, control, control, control, control, control ♪
00:05 - When we think about core training,
00:06 we generally think about our abs, we think about obliques,
00:09 we think about deeper core muscles,
00:10 but something we don't think about very often
00:12 is something that just doesn't get trained enough
00:14 in the gym or targeted enough in the gym
00:16 is your lower back.
00:17 And having lower back strength
00:18 winds up being really, really important.
00:20 If we wanna build serious strength,
00:22 if we wanna enhance our deadlift,
00:23 if we wanna enhance our squat,
00:24 we need a strong lower back.
00:26 We really should train it more.
00:27 - I fractured two vertebrae in my lower spine
00:29 and it's been the changing of my goals since that point
00:32 to wanna be able to pick up my grandchildren
00:33 when I'm 80 years old
00:34 and have an active lifestyle beyond that point.
00:36 - The deadlift is a simple act
00:38 of picking something up off the ground.
00:39 We're gonna do it through our lives.
00:41 It's gonna incorporate a lot of glutes.
00:43 It's gonna incorporate a lot of our upper back,
00:45 incorporate a lot of our abs,
00:46 but it really is that lower back
00:47 that's gonna really protect your spine when you do that.
00:50 And so we have to be really, really strong
00:51 through our lower back.
00:52 - Your back starts to feel it.
00:53 And the fact is, if you're not training it,
00:55 the weak point's gonna give out.
00:56 I do think when we're talking about our training,
00:57 we need to find ways to get ourselves stronger
00:59 and as resilient as possible.
01:01 And the fact is, you're gonna feel soreness
01:02 in areas you didn't feel soreness before.
01:04 Like if you haven't worked your lower back,
01:06 you might feel fatigue in there.
01:07 And it doesn't mean that it's hurt.
01:09 It just means that it's tired and it's developing
01:10 just like every other muscle
01:12 you're gonna train in your body.
01:13 So we need to know how to do it safely and effectively
01:16 in a very specific way.
01:17 - And the biggest thing, period,
01:19 is on some level within your training,
01:21 you need to target it.
01:22 And that's why we've got five exercises for you
01:24 that are gonna help you address your lower back
01:26 and you can work into your routines.
01:28 - At number five, we're gonna go with your basic
01:29 lower back exercise in the gym.
01:31 And that's gonna be your 45 degree back extension.
01:34 And we're so common to seeing this
01:35 and we don't necessarily know how to use it
01:37 because everyone does it.
01:38 That means some people do it right
01:40 and some people do it wrong.
01:41 And we wanna focus on maintaining a nice,
01:43 rigid spine, operating through it,
01:46 and letting the hips do a lot of that work.
01:48 Because the more your hips are gonna work,
01:50 we have to take into consideration
01:51 your low back and your hips play hand in hand.
01:54 When one side works, the other side is also working.
01:57 So it's a baseline exercise to work on getting
01:59 that lower back moving from folding forward
02:02 and getting all the way up through extension.
02:04 But it's gonna play a huge role
02:05 in a lot of the other lifts that we do.
02:06 - If you wanna do this so that we can really focus in
02:09 on the lower back, you're gonna focus, like Dave said,
02:11 on not letting your back round.
02:13 And you wanna intentionally think about keeping your spine
02:16 in a neutral position.
02:17 Think about staying straight up and down through your spine.
02:19 That's gonna help you focus a little bit more
02:21 on the lower back with this.
02:23 How do you like the reps and sets on this?
02:24 - Yeah, so I like to go higher volume with this.
02:26 I would prefer if someone's starting out with it,
02:27 you end up doing three sets, about 15 reps.
02:31 Now, as a disclaimer, you're going to feel tired
02:33 in your lower back by working lower back.
02:35 That's fine.
02:36 There is a difference between fatigue and achiness.
02:39 - Work through that fatigue a little bit,
02:41 start to understand it.
02:42 You're gonna see that reflected
02:43 in some of the other exercises we have coming up too.
02:45 - You're feeling an achiness, pain, shooting pain,
02:48 then I would defer going to a specialist
02:50 to get that checked out.
02:51 If it's something that lingers and bothers you.
02:53 - But that's number five.
02:54 Number four on the list is another body weight exercise.
02:56 I know this is a favorite of yours too.
02:58 This is the bird dog and this seems simple.
03:00 It is simple.
03:01 And I think you, I like it
03:02 because it's something everybody can execute.
03:03 - The fact of the matter is,
03:05 is the bird dog is such a special movement
03:07 when it comes to building resiliency
03:08 and confidence in the lower back,
03:10 because you're now lengthening those arms
03:12 and limbs away from the body.
03:14 And you need to maintain that ground stability
03:17 that you actually have to have.
03:18 The fact is your body's gonna operate better
03:20 when it feels more stable through situations.
03:21 So if it doesn't feel stable,
03:23 it's not gonna allow you to operate as smoothly
03:25 or as athletically as you would want to.
03:28 And the bird dog is a great way
03:29 to inch yourself further and further
03:32 into more comfortable spaces
03:33 where we're now challenging hand contact,
03:36 knee contact, your spinal extensors, your abs,
03:39 the entirety of the 360 degrees of the core.
03:41 Everything's involved with this.
03:43 And you're gonna find out the lower back
03:44 gets a lot of benefits from doing a movement like this,
03:47 as well as creating a full body perspective to it.
03:50 - Your goal on every single rep
03:51 is to almost make it look easy
03:53 and be very mindful of the fact that
03:56 when I lift my left leg off the ground,
03:59 as soon as I lift that left knee,
04:00 suddenly I have a little bit of instability
04:02 and my hip wants to drop.
04:03 I wanna battle that.
04:04 That moment is where my left back extensor
04:08 has to get a little bit of extra work.
04:09 Don't just do the bird dog and don't just survive the reps,
04:11 but take your time, work through them.
04:13 What are the reps and sets on this?
04:15 - So I would end up doing something with lower repetitions.
04:17 I would probably do three to four sets
04:18 of about eight reps on each side.
04:20 It's a great way to set the foundation
04:22 and that's why it's such an amazing exercise.
04:24 - The other exercises on our list wind up being heavy.
04:26 This is how you get ready for those heavy exercises.
04:28 You lay the foundation here.
04:30 - At number three, we have a pure hinge in the good morning.
04:33 And a good morning is gonna end up
04:34 seeing that hip hinge action,
04:36 but by the placement of the weight,
04:38 we're gonna find a lot of stress on that lower back,
04:41 specifically as you're going through the descent
04:43 in that hinge.
04:44 - We've got a weight on our mid back.
04:46 And if we mismanage that, if we are lazy,
04:49 if we just try to bend at the waist
04:51 without pushing our butt back,
04:53 then all of a sudden we're not in a great position.
04:55 You're not gonna go incredibly heavy on that.
04:57 I think that's the mistake people make with this
04:59 is they try to go too heavy.
05:00 Really understand what's going on.
05:01 Don't try to get these reps into the stratosphere.
05:04 I like to do this at three to four sets of six to eight reps.
05:08 Take your time with this,
05:10 but you're gonna get a really, really great
05:11 lower back benefit out of it.
05:12 And you're gonna start to understand how to move
05:15 and load that lower back and be mindful.
05:17 That's number three on our list.
05:19 So moving right on up,
05:20 then we get to the Romanian deadlift.
05:22 And now we're starting to go from loading a little bit,
05:25 like we were with the good morning,
05:26 to once you master the Romanian deadlift,
05:28 you can get really, really heavy with this exercise.
05:31 Works kind of with any implement.
05:32 So we can use a trap bar here.
05:33 We can use dumbbells.
05:35 Regardless of the implement you're using,
05:37 what you wanna do,
05:38 if you really wanna get that lower back burn,
05:40 if you really wanna focus on your lower back,
05:42 is you wanna linger for a second,
05:44 maybe even two in the low position.
05:46 Once you've lowered as far as you can,
05:48 then you wanna hold for a split second there,
05:50 because that is that position
05:51 that really challenges your lower back.
05:53 Live in that moment,
05:55 understand the tension you have there,
05:56 and then stand back up.
05:57 It's a ton of glute when you stand up,
05:59 but we're still getting some spinal extensions too.
06:00 - Yeah.
06:01 You're gonna wanna sit with three to four sets.
06:03 I like to stay anywhere from eight to 12 reps for this one
06:06 in that middle range of volume,
06:08 specifically because this is not an exercise
06:10 you're trying to PR.
06:11 But for this, I would like to see
06:13 how much stress I can add on from a weight perspective
06:15 while getting myself a certain amount of repetitions
06:18 that feels comfortable,
06:19 where I can start to groove that pattern well,
06:21 because this is something that you tend to see
06:23 in a lot of your day-to-day basis,
06:24 whether you know it or not.
06:25 So training a Romanian deadlift is a great way
06:27 to get yourself stronger in a lot of ways.
06:29 - Exactly.
06:30 And point blank of all the exercises on our list,
06:32 this is gonna be the one you can load the most,
06:34 even if you are staying in that eight to 12 range.
06:36 It's never bad to take on that load
06:38 once you understand how to manage it.
06:40 That's number two on our list.
06:41 And our top pick is a matter of choosing
06:43 a more dynamic aspect to using posterior chain work,
06:47 getting the lower back involved.
06:49 The fact of the matter is,
06:50 if you need to be powerful through movement,
06:52 you need speed, you need intensity,
06:54 the lower back has to be there to do that.
06:56 And there's no better exercise for us in this setting
06:59 than the kettlebell swing.
07:00 - Exactly.
07:01 And everything else we have is slow, controlled,
07:03 very much about strength.
07:04 This is about two ideas that really happen
07:07 all the time in real life.
07:08 It's a combination of acceleration
07:11 as we're standing up,
07:12 and your glutes are generally thought of
07:14 as a driver for this,
07:14 but your lower back is still playing a role
07:17 as we're standing up and driving that way forward
07:19 and trying to propel our hips through.
07:21 And then it's also deceleration.
07:23 Every single time that kettlebell goes back between our legs,
07:27 yes, we are working to really time that hinge
07:29 and protect our lower back,
07:31 but at the same time, your lower back,
07:33 and on some level, really contract
07:35 and create a little bit of deceleration force,
07:37 or else if it doesn't, your spine is just gonna break.
07:40 So just having all of that happen all at once at speed,
07:44 this winds up being such a great lower back exercise.
07:46 - Yeah, especially when we're talking about the hips
07:49 and the lower back working together,
07:50 a lot of the musculature in your lower back
07:52 is going to support your ability for pelvic positioning,
07:56 how your hips translate forward,
07:57 specifically through the deceleration.
07:59 When that weight is coming down fast at you,
08:01 your lower back is the weakest link in that chain.
08:04 So the fact of the matter is,
08:06 we're gonna have to focus on having the right strength there
08:08 to compliment the ability of the glutes and the hamstrings
08:11 to produce that force
08:13 that's gonna really drive that kettlebell up.
08:15 If it's not there, it'll be the quickest thing
08:18 that you feel through a kettlebell swing,
08:20 and that is not a position you wanna be in.
08:22 - One of the miracles of the kettlebell swing
08:23 from a lower back standpoint
08:25 is the lower back work is just gonna happen
08:27 if you do your kettlebell swings right.
08:29 You don't need to try to add anything extra on the top.
08:32 - But the fact is, a lot of people avoid low back training
08:35 because they're afraid of pain
08:37 when it's really just fatigue,
08:39 and then it becomes a weaker muscle and a weaker space,
08:41 and then you try to train it,
08:42 and then it's more vulnerable,
08:43 and it becomes a downward cycle
08:45 that if you don't address it,
08:47 specifically through strength-based options
08:48 and dynamic options,
08:50 you're going to always have that
08:51 as a pain point for yourself.
08:53 So it's important that you start to address it
08:55 through your programming,
08:56 and building up towards a kettlebell swing
08:57 is an amazing way to do that.
08:59 - If I'm doing it with lighter bells,
09:00 I'll do this for time instead.
09:02 I'll think 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
09:04 If I have a heavier bell,
09:05 I'll usually be in the eight to 10 rep range.
09:08 I think the key too is,
09:10 when I'm doing my kettlebell swings,
09:11 even though we want to recognize
09:13 that this is a lower back exercise,
09:14 I'm still not trying to overarch
09:17 and turn it into some kind of excessive lower back exercise.
09:21 - You're trying to throw the weight
09:22 with your hips and hamstrings,
09:23 but your lower back has to be strong enough in a position
09:25 to sustain that, both on the acceleration and deceleration,
09:28 which is why it plays such a huge role through it.
09:30 - And that's true on every single one of the exercises
09:33 we have in here.
09:34 Never in any of these exercises
09:36 is just your lower back working.
09:37 We can't isolate it like we isolate our biceps
09:40 so we can do concentration curls.
09:41 Doesn't work that way with your lower back.
09:43 Instead, we have our lower back working with our glutes,
09:45 working with our abs,
09:47 working with all these other muscle groups,
09:48 but our lower back is still getting a ton of work
09:51 on all of these exercises.
09:52 So if you get them in your routines,
09:53 you're going to be strengthening up your lower back.
09:55 You're going to get that lower back working with your abs,
09:58 working with your glutes,
09:59 and you're going to feel stronger overall.
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