PART 6: LOWER BACK

If lower back pain is the bane of your life, strength training could be the antidote

- Jonny Thompson

It’s estimated that 80% of adults will suffer from lower back pain at some point in their lives. By virtue of being a bipedal hominid (walking upright on two legs), back pain is largely unavoidable.

Technology doesn’t offer much insight into fixing the problem either, unfortunately, since MRI scans of the spines of pain-free patients are largely indistinguishable from those suffering from lower back pain.

Take a more mechanistic approach to the body and tight quads, weak glutes, leg length discrepancies or a weak core are often highlighted as the root cause of lower back pain; even if there’s very little evidence to support this approach as a successful treatment. After all, if curing lower back pain was as simple as stretching your quads, doing planks or wearing corrective orthotics, the statistics would be flipped on their head.

So if lower back pain is largely unavoidable and difficult to pin down to a single root cause, what can be done about it? Well, the best approach is to bulletproof your back by making it stronger. And even if you already suffer from back pain, which would you rather have? A weak back that’s sore all of the time or a strong one that’s sore but is better able to resist the stress of everyday life and mountain biking? It’s a no-brainer, right?

Now, we’re not saying that having good hip mobility and a stable core isn’t important for back health, we’re just making a case that the lower back needs some direct strength work. And if you’ve become rigid and protective of your lower back, we want to get you moving again in a safe, controlled manner with exercises like the Jefferson curl that improve flexibility and strength at end range of motion. After all, a strong back isn’t much use if you can’t safely pick up a pencil from the floor.