Every human needs a strong back all his life. A strong,
well-conditioned back can withstand more stress, and protect the spine better,
than a back that has not been conditioned through exercise. Conditioning
through flexibility and strengthening back exercises not only helps the back
avoid injury, or minimize the severity of injury if the spine is traumatized,
it also can help relieve the pain of many back conditions.
Many back exercises can help strengthen the spinal column
and the supporting muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Most of these back
exercises focus not only on the back, but also the abdominal (stomach) muscles
and gluteus (buttocks) and hip muscles. Taken together, these strong 'core'
muscles can provide back pain relief because they provide strong support for
the spine, keeping it in alignment and facilitating movements that extend or
twist the spine.
Today
we focus on lower back or in other words lumbar stabilization.
Lumbar stabilization is an active form of exercise.
It
is a multi-component program It is designed to strengthen muscles to support
the spine and help prevent lower back pain. It relies on proprioception, or the
awareness of where ones joints are positioned. Performed everyday, these
exercises can help keep the back strong and well positioned. It is generally
used during all phases of a back pain episode
Single
leg raise:
Lying on your chest, hands under your chin or behind your
back folded, lift one leg up very straight while inhaling, hold for 2 seconds
and bring it down slow. Remember while lifting the hips need to be straighter
rather than trying to lift more and tilting that side of the hip more, creating
an imbalance. Change the other leg following the same pattern. Do breathing along
with the lift for better muscle connectivity. You can either do 1 leg first or
you can inter change the legs while doing it in one set.
Double
leg raise:
While doing this exercise keep your hands under your
thighs (lying down on chest). Hands will give an extra support just in case you
have lower back pain. Inhaling, lift both the legs up at the same time hold the
position for couple of seconds and while exhaling keep both the legs down. This
is an advanced lower back exercise after single leg raise. Do it in sets and
reps of 12 to begin with and keep improvising.
Bridging:
A very famous exercise for the posterior chain and
excellent exercise for warming up as well. All you need to do is lying on the back,
fold both the knees with shoulder length width, you can grab both your ankles
if you want or keep the arms on your side. Inhaling lift the hips up , where in
focus has to be on the lower back and glutes taking the load. The shoulders
have to be well on the floor supporting. Exhaling, slowly bring the hips back on floor. There are 2 ways of
doing it, first is trying to form and arch in the back with the lift, it helps
greatly stretch the back. The other is lifting the hips up but not arching the
back. The back stays straight in the line and never attempts to arch. Both are
good exercises, but slightly used for more stretch or strengthen exercises.
Full
bridge:
This exercise is very advanced and requires lot of upper
body and lower body strength and lots of flexibility in your upper back and
lower back. From lying down on your back position, you have to set your hands
and feet in similar width. Synchronizing the lift, you have to inhale and lift
the upper body using your palms flat on the floor and sole of the feet flat on
the floor. Strength heavily deployed from your shoulders to biceps/triceps to
forearms you are easily able to lift your upper body. Your strength using lower
back muscles, glutes, calves you lift your lower body. Reaching the highest
point of lift you have to balance your weight while achieving full arch in your
back. If you don’t have the flexibility start doing the half bridge first and
then just the upper body lift. With time you would be able to lift up and
finishing slowly keep your body down. You can time yourself and beat it every time.
IF YOU HAVE ANY BACK PROBLEMS/INJURIES, GET YOUR SELF FULLY EVALUATED BY A DOCTOR BEFORE STARTING ANY EXERCISE.
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