Free eBook

Essential Exercises For Low Back Pain

A complete step-by-step guide to rehabilitation and exercise prescription for the lumbar spine.

Here’s what we cover in this free 45-page eBook…

PART 1: THE PROBLEM WITH TRADITIONAL LOW BACK EXERCISES

Part 1 focuses on a research review and clinical reasoning behind the exercises I present later in the book. Because if we’re going to base our lower back rehab on a certain set of exercises we had better know why!

Here I review the limitations of popular exercises like planks, bird-dogs, and bridges.

I also discuss how common exercises like knee-to-chest stretches or yoga poses like “cat-camel” or “child’s pose” are simply too generic, too passive, and too non-specific to have any significant effect on the individual joints of the lumbar spine.

PART 2: CRITICAL MOVEMENTS FOR EVERY LUMBAR SPINE

Knowling the limitations of some of the most common lower back exercises we can start to formulate a better  soluation.

In this section I introduce a better and more specific way to target the lumbar spine.

These movements form the basis for all of the exercises that follow. But as we will see, slight changes in when and how we perform these movements  allow us to direct a specific stimulus (i.e., for tissue healing, flexibility, motor control, or strength/endurance stimulus) to the individual joint segments of the lumbar spine.

PART 3: EXERCISES FOR ACUTE LOW BACK PAIN 

We know exercises can be a power stimulus to control symptoms and guide healing. But sometimes prescribing exercise with acute lower back pain patients can be tricky.

In many cases when the spine is really painful and sensitive almost any movement can be painful. This can make patients reluctant or even fearful to do spine exercises.

In this section I review my 4 go-to exercies for acute and “movement sensitive” spines. The key here is that the exercises need to be safe (i.e., gentle and non-weight bearing), active, and keep the patient in contor of the movement and the symptom response.

Think of this as a mini 4-exercise movement routine that the patient will perfrom exery few hours to help promote tissue healing and de-sensitive the painful movements.

PART 4: EXERCISES FOR LOW BACK MOBILITY AND CONTROL

As movement sensitivity and the inflammatry response settles the focus turns to restoring function of the lumbar spine.

This includes developing optimal flexibility, motor control, and strength/endurance. But again, we need to focus on targeting these criticall attributes at the level of the individual joints. (This is why traditonal stretches don’t work well).

These exercise progressions expand on the basic movements presented so far. At this stage we can manipulate key variables like ROM, intensity, and hold times to more specifically develop intersegmental mobility and motor control of the deep muscles that surround and control the lumbar spine.

PART 5 – EXERCISES FOR LOW BACK STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE

Adequate strength and endurace is important for optimal movement and protection of the lumbar spine. But traditional exercises like bridges, side planks, and bird-dogs only train the msucles isometrically. 

But if we are only training the joints within very limited ranges and positions – like “neutral” spine posture – the effect of that exercise stress is thus confined to these narrow ranges. 

It’s not that these exercises are bad. But they are incomplete.

To be most effective we need to load the spine though it’s full range of motion… But we need to do this in a controlled and progressive way. 

To do this we can use “pelvic curls”. This is an extension of our basic pelvic tilt movements we have used for developing movement tolerance and mobility/control. But now we will increase the load and resistance of these movement to have a more speficic strength effect.

In this last section I will review the exercise progressions themselves. I will also outine programming criteria like sets, reps, and frequency.