Training Low Back Flexion - Part 2
Throughout my sports training growing up, in college and even in chiropractic school, I was told to keep my spine in neutral to prevent injury. I even started preaching this to others when it came to building core strength and preventing lower back injuries. Keeping the spine neutral when squatting and deadlifting. Choosing exercises like hollow holds or planks over sit ups, knee ups and crunches.
Once I started seeing lower back injuries in myself and others who had a strong core, I started looking outside the box to figure out what was going on. All of the strength built was in that one range of motion, neutral. Once outside a neutral spine, there was no strength because those positions were never trained.
Try to pick up an awkward object with a neutral spine. It’s virtually impossible. Picking up a pencil, golf ball or even trying to tie your shoe with a neutral spine is not that simple, nor should you have to do it braced like you were picking up a few hundred pounds.
Joints are meant to move. The spine is meant to move (the spine is made up of 365 joints!) and move often. We should train our spine in all ranges of motion as well as neutral so we are better prepared for what life throws at us. This is important because the research shows that during a squat or deadlift, when we think our spine is in neutral, we are actually in spinal flexion (see video @ 4:20 mark).
As I talked about in Part 1, the reverse hyper exercise works your back in flexion and extension. However, since the reverse hyper machines are not easy to come by, we need to have some alternative exercises to accomplish the same benefits.
The alternatives:
Lumbar Spine CARs - this is a great way to get the spine moving and improve spinal segmentation. Think about moving one segment of the spine at a time.
The Jefferson Curl - start doing these with no weight, focusing on form. Take a video from the side to make sure your entire spine flexes. If you are unable to achieve full flexion, especially the lumbar spine. Do not add weight until your lumbar spine can round…most of you will have great flexion in the neck and thoracic spine but the lumbar spine will be blocked, making it look flat. If/when you decide to add weight, start low and gradually increase. Always err on the side of caution as this is not a max load lift.
Sit Ups/Crunches - these should be self-explanatory or easy to YouTube.
Knee-ups or toes-to-bar - most of you would just do knee ups as toes-to-bar are an advanced movement.
All of these movements incorporate spinal flexion while building strength. The Jefferson curl is an important exercise in my routine and I perform it 1-2x per week. It took me a couple of months to work on technique before I added weight. Adding spinal flexion strength exercises has been a game changer for my low back.