"The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve thought
of probably about a million different ways to start this article (well, at
least half a million), but some conversations I had over the past few days
spurred me to write something, ANYTHING, about a topic I think is really
important.
What are you doing to protect your spine?
*crickets chirping*
Anything?
I mean, if you injure your arm, your leg, an eye, an ear or
whatever else, that sucks, but you’ve got a spare to get by with. Injure your spine and you’re closed for
business.
I got to thinking about this because as much as I hate to
admit I’m scared of anything, I’m terrified of back problems. Both of my parents have had surgery on their
spines – my dad had surgery on his back about 10 years ago due to a damaged
disc, and my mom has had not one, but TWO surgeries on her neck, which have
severely limited her range of motion and made life much harder for her. One of the reasons I grew up unathletic and
shying away from physical expression is that both of my parents had bad
backs/necks, and could never be all that physical. I never got to see my parents be especially
physically active – no backyard sports games with their friends, no
weightlifting, no nothing. To this day,
it surprises me when I see my friends parents in their 40s, 50s, and beyond
being physically active and enjoying physical culture. I just can’t fathom it because I don’t see my
own parents doing it.
So when I talk to people about taking care of themselves and
training smart, it surprises me that a lot of people either a) had never
thought of it and don’t know how to take care of their joints, or b) don’t give
a $h!t. One 19 year old I talked to a
few days ago told me about how much he loves wakeboarding, but how much it
hurts his spine because of all the thrashing around that he goes through. The concerned trainer in me said “You’d
better be careful, man; you jack your spine up and you’ll regret it for the
rest of your life.” He kinda laughed and told me “yeah, I know.” Another dude I once talked to (a
20-something skateboarder and BMX biker, so go figure) told me “I figure now’s the time to
screw all my joints up, while I’m young and can have fun, rather than when I’m
old and can’t do as much.” No, I didn’t
make that quote up for this article. And
no, I couldn’t even begin to think of a way to respond to him.
Welcome to Snap City. Population: That Guy
So, back to my original question: What are you doing to
protect your spine?
Tightening your abs and butt while you practice your
strength training is a good start but just like tightening your belt won’t make
you thinner, you need to go above and beyond if you want to truly protect the
thing that allows you to move, breathe, stand upright, etc. In my experience, the there are two things
you have to do to make your spine less injury-prone: Improve your mobility and
improve your strength.
Fortunately, it’s not that complicated. Your spine has 24 articulating vertebrae – so
just move them! They’re meant to move! Forward, backward, twist, bend, repeat. Do it carefully and slowly as the video below
describes.
One problem with a sedentary lifestyle (apart from the fact
that it’s boring as hell) is that all that lack of movement makes movement
tougher as the nervous system picks a much shorter range of motion for the muscles
we use the least. This can also happen
if you’re big into strength training but not big on flexibility practice (shame
on you). The Trifecta from Convict Conditioning 2 has worked wonders
on my spine’s flexibility and mobility.
Now that you can move your spine like a stud, it’s time to
strengthen it. There is a ton of ways to strengthen your back, but for the ultimate
in flexible strength and overall resilience, nothing, but NOTHING, beats the
back bridge.
There are many ways to do it, but I like the ConvictConditioning method. Rather than use it
as a static hold, treat it like a dynamic (moving) exercise. You start from the floor, arch your back and
raise your hips to the ceiling, return to the floor, and repeat. This has a myriad of benefits:
2) In my experience, it builds strength faster than a bridge hold would, since you can rest as long as you’d like between reps, minimizing fatigue and maximizing the flexible strength benefits from the exercise.
3) It stretches EVERYTHING in front of your body. I often feel it especially in my quads, which can get tight from a lot of squatting, and in my abs, which get tight from a lot of heavy ab work.
4) It will encourage better shoulder flexibility, as one of the hallmarks of a good bridge is straight arms. Pair this with some serious back extension and your shoulders will be as flexible as they’ll ever need to be.
5) Women love a sexy set of beefy spinal erectors.
All right, so I made that last one up. But everything else and more is absolutely
true. When you’re ready to bulletproof
your spine and say no to weakness and injury in the most important part of your
body, you’re ready for some bridges!
Like a bridge over troubled spinal columns
Unlike a lot of exercises that you can just launch into and
make fast progress on, like the kettlebell swing or the clean and press, you’ll
want to take your time and milk each bridging progression for everything you can. We in America are not a culture of bridging,
so the learning curve is longer for most than it would be for an exercise we’re
more familiar with, like the bench press.
Check out the video below and start working on these progressions one by
one. Couple the mobility exercises in
the videos above with the bridgework in the video below, and before you know it
you will have unjacked your back, strengthened your spine, and improved your
back health.
Feel free to
high-five me from across the Internet.
Putting back problems in the grave deserves a little celebration.
Don't leave me hangin', man, I can't hold this position much longer!
Until next time, life heavy and eat hearty!
Aleks
