Keys to a resilient spine

Our backs have to be the most unfairly demonized part of our bodies. There are so many fitness professionals who have made a career out of characterizing our bodies as weak, fragile, misaligned, or otherwise dysfunctional in an effort to make us dependent on their services. As a fitness professional, it’s difficult to see these coercive narratives take hold, especially because they are false. Our bodies are not fragile, but these belief systems become self-reinforcing cycles of pain and fear. When we are afraid to move our bodies in specific ways we miss out on the opportunity to build resiliency in those positions, and thus when we inevitably find ourselves there in our day to day lives we are very prone to injury. The only way of breaking this cycle is through movement. We need to find exercises that serve as appropriate starting points for us to build back up our capacity. Every part of our body works this way. This is a short comprehensive guide to building capacity and resilience in our spine.  

1) Train the muscles of your spine to resist motion 

Exercises that require a stiff braced core, like the squat and deadlift, train the capacity of our low back to resist bending forward. These will be your heaviest, most intense lifts. 

2) Train your low back to create motion 

Exercises that involve moving your spine through its full range of motion are excellent for building strength and capacity in your low back, like the jefferson curl, where you start standing and round your back to reach down to the ground, or the back extension, where you are arching your back either lying on the ground or in a glute ham developer. 

3) Train your abdominal muscles to resist motion 

Exercises like planks, side planks, dead bugs, or pallof presses are all good exercises to teach yourself how to use your abdominal muscles to resist motion, and act alongside your low back muscles to support your spine. Once you can complete a couple sets of each exercise without too much difficulty, progress to the following category. 

4) Train your abdominal muscles to create motion 

Sit ups, especially when done on a GHD, side bends, and other rotational exercises are all great exercises to develop your abdominal muscles in both their strength and size. A stronger, more developed midsection will be better at supporting your spine during lifting. No, you can’t overdevelop your ‘six pack’ muscles. 

5) Refine your technique with lifting heavy weights  

In this context, your technique is essential for how the load is distributed across your body. If you arch your back excessively during your heavy lifts you will preferentially place more stress on the muscles of your lower back. If you cannot move out of the specific posture where your lower back is arched excessively, otherwise known as an anterior pelvic tilt, it will put your abdominal muscles in a position in which they cannot help brace your core. The combo can lead to those muscles working harder than they can recover, potentially leading to issues down the line. 

Exercises like the hamstring bridge, deadbug, and forearm plank are all good starting points to learn how to engage the muscles that are responsible for bringing the center of your body backwards in space. From there, learn to brace and use your abdominals to take some of the load off your lower back, and distribute it more thoroughly across your entire core.