BACK AT IT

Personal trainer and sports scientist Luke Worthington recommends the following back stretches to improve spinal flexibility and reduce discomfort

Spines are designed to move. However, they are designed to move with control – and in the places we want them to. The easiest way to assess which areas a human body should be getting its movement from is to look at the cross-sectional area of muscle available in each segment.

The areas with the greatest cross-sectional area of muscle are the areas that we can produce the most force, and also the areas where we can exercise the most control. If we look at the torso, the large phasic (force generating) muscles are the latissimus dorsi (lats) and the pectorals, these muscles wrap around the ribcage, and it is this area that we therefore have the ability to produce force through the upper body.

The section of the spine that has ribs attached to it is known as the ‘thoracic’ spine and consists of 12 vertebra, each with a corresponding rib.

The areas of the spine with the least cross-sectional area of muscle are the cervical (neck) and the lumbar (lower back). Therefore, these are areas that we do not have the ability to produce much force and should be considered as ‘stable’ segments.

The easy way to remember this is with the phrase, ‘Where there’s meat, there’s movement’.

However, as well as giving the ability to produce force and control, large areas of phasic muscle can also – if not regularly maintained through movement – be responsible for reducing range of motion. If range of motion in one area of the body is reduced, then it is a simple principle of biomechanics that motion will have to increase in other areas – we call this a ‘compensatory’ movement pattern.

Movement is medicine