I avoid back exercises because I end up with tightness. Should I cut back lifts out completely?

Question

Scott Dickinson · Answer

Can I say Scott Dickinson here? The great question. Should you cut back lift out completely? Because you end up with tightness or is that counterproductive? Look, there's probably a couple of things you need to keep in mind with this one. Firstly, that tightness. It may just be part of the adaptation process. If you always end up taking out, back lifts, or avoiding them, because you end up tight, where you're never going to get good at them weaker. Was it generally associated with with tightness as that is part of the normal adaptation process. So keep that one in mind, but the other thing that you probably need to keep in mind, also is that that tightness or pain may be an indication, that there's some underlying conditions that you maybe haven't had diagnosed yet some underlying disc issues or some back issues that you need to get fully diagnosed. So I would certainly recommend getting too. See your doctor or your physical therapist or your physio wherever you might be in the world, but certainly, I would recommend you getting some some further investigation and assistance with that. If you're at all concerned.

Matthew Pendola · Answer

So you can to avoid back exercises because, you know, feeling like you're tight afterwards, maybe even it causes pain. And should you cut back on these lifts or cut them completely out? Is that counterproductive? Well, maybe the lifts that you are currently doing is counterproductive. There are no bad lips. Really to me in general. I mean, I guess there are a few but it's really not how Which were lifting about how we're lifting and we're looking at really whether or not we're loading defeated mechanic. So, first thing that I would look at is our positioning over. Alright, when we go to reach with our arm, if we notice that we flare our ribs, when we reach that is going to bring that tension. You're probably feeling to the lower back. If you kick your head back, you're going to feel that tension, right? So one thing that I would suggest starting with with would be a chest supported row so that you have a cue that helps you keep better positioning. This is something that I sort a lot of people off with. Now, I'm on a bench. I have my chest supported. My legs are actually down a little bit. So I can't really be arched or lose that position with my hips either. Then I'm going to roll back and I can pause and even hold this position for 30 to 60 Seconds. I can start to add some Rose to this position as well. I like to start off with doing more exercises like this so that we become more aware of our positioning. While we're learning with some good support, some good cues. And when we're ready, we take those cues away and we start with something, maybe like a pull down. And I'm going to use the band here to show pull down where Now, I'm going to go half kneeling. So now I've learned those cues in the chest supported row. I'm maintaining the cues. I learned now. I'm starting to learn to row down without losing that position in my back. Okay. Now, finally, I would say that you can always add in just some good Mobility work, like, having your hand against the wall here, this opposite thigh against the wall, and then you're just Learning to get good extension through your thoracic as you're rotating and reaching. All right. So these are just all ideas about how you can learn to be in a better position. Start loading, as you learn more, you can load more, but, really starting off with the basics, and having a progression to me. That's the answer. Not to avoid these movements all together. So, good luck with that. I hope this.

Dr. Brian Cunningham · Answer

Hey, Sam, I'm going to answer this from a physiotherapy type of background things. I would be hesitant about is creating an imbalance. Right. So if you're only lifting and doing stuff from the chest or front, you'll create an imbalance. So that's one thing. Also sounds like maybe you're not recovering or doing stuff in order to eliminate some of the tightness or thing. I Duh, reach out to Matt or Aaron and and work with somebody specifically on technique and progression. It sounds like you may have some issues with that and or reach out to physical therapists and make sure that you have the fundamental instability. First people tend to lift, kind of heavy if they haven't lifted with a professional strength and conditioning. Person they tend to go straight into the bigger lifts in the movements and aren't aware of the quality and the technique, but you also only have to have the movement requirements throughout your hip, your feet, your lower back, or upper back and ultimately have the proper technique. So hopefully that helps I would not eliminate the lives, but I would make sure that you get assessed by somebody or Held by somebody, that's a professional to make sure that there's nothing going on. Hopefully that helps if you need anything, please reach out.

Erin Carson · Answer

Hi. Sam, true to form with me. I'm always going to answer a question with another question. So I'm not really sure why you're back or where your back is getting tight when you do back exercises, but I'm going to tell you that, I'm going to come from a perspective of my experience with people who, who shy away from working the back side of the body. And so what we're really looking for and I have a pretty strong lordotic curve, here. We need you to be able Hip hinge and be able to stabilize your low back. So as I go into this position, you can see there's just a little bit of a scoop to my back, but I can actually move my hip complex in order to to go ahead and flatten my low back and be able to put my lumbar spine in a position that is considered a neutral pelvic position. So one of the strategies that I use to teach Athlete a better hip hinge. And unless you're really experiencing upper back, tightness is going to be something, we call a founder, and which taken from dr. Eric Goodman's foundation training. So, you would take a one and a half times shoulder-width stance. We're going to go ahead and use measuring sticks between the lower rib and the hips and make sure that we don't lose the space between the ribs and the hips as we push the hips back. From a side angle, you can see that that my back is nice and flat. And there's no movement. My back is nice and stable. And so there's an additional way of thought process. When looking at the back side of the body, you want to train the hamstrings, the glutes, the Cavs all of the backside of the lower body in conjunction with a nice stable, low back, a lumbar spine. But in order for that lumbar spine to remain stable, it can move it just doesn't do it. Well, we need to be able to mobilize through the thoracic spine. And so in conjunction with having that really good hip hinge, we need to be able to move through the thoracic spine and also through the hips. So I'm going to kind of look at how the whole body functions so that we get Mobility through the thoracic spine Mobility through the hips Mobility through the ankles so that the low back can be stable. So we want to look at the body as a complete unit and how we can best interact with it. From a strength and conditioning standpoint to make what needs to be stable, stable, and what needs to be mobile. We need to make it strong and maintain that motion. Hopefully, that's helpful.

Chris Peden · Answer

Hi Sam, so I guess this probably needs a little bit more context to the question to understand it a little bit better and give a better answer, you know, and then just trying to understand like is it tightness that's restrictive and painful and causing you not to be able to do other activities like in daily life or other training or is it just sort of training tightness and stiffness from, you know, the little bit of Dom muscle soreness? Because you potentially over work that muscle and done a bit too much in any one session. So then it became just trying to understand. You know what size? Are you doing? What? Variations of them from horizontal, Pauline vertical, pulling single arm, double armor, Etc. What kit availability are you trying to stretch your back with, you know, looking at that and breaking that down and gaining a greater understanding of what it is, you're trying to do, but we definitely do not want to be pulling them out and not doing anything. You know, the muscles of the back are important, for our posture, the important for the stability of the spine stability, the pelvis to mention a few so we definitely don't want to cut those lifts out and we should but we probably do. 12 would want to have a look at what it is you're doing. What's your form on those exercises to?

Dr. Ted Forcum · Answer

Sam. This is a great question. You know, I always have a motto that the same things that make you are the same things that break you. So if you're having tightness after doing a lift with your back, it's probably a matter of adjusting your load or looking at to technique or form. Of course, your strength coaches is on the other part of the channel have all reached out in that regard. The other component is your capacity to lift with proper form and some of the things can be limiting you there. There might be tightness into your hip flexors or weakness of your glutes lack of thrash seek extension. So, really finding out what the cause is that's creating this tightness, because it's not just because of the lift is because of the lack of ability to handle that level of load. So, going through an evaluation of functional, evaluation to determine your capacity weaknesses, whether that's in strength stability. T. / range of motion are key components so you can have the strength and power to be able to lift a lot of weight. But if you can't stabilize, you can't safely lift that level of load. So we want to make sure that all those capacities are are checked on and ready to roll before you start lifting heavy and going into competition. Take care.

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"I avoid back exercises because I end up with tightness. Should I cut back lifts out completely?"