Optimal Loading – Part 2

In a lifetime the average person is likely to bend over more than a million times – that’s cumulative loading.  If you do it optimally, you’re less likely to build up cumulative strain on your back.  Can you bend over in such a way as to minimise the strain on your lower back?

How do power lifters lift such huge weights without prolapsing a disc every time?  How do people who work picking crops at ground level manage to do it for decades without crippling lower back pain?  Check out the hip hingeing progressions in the foundation activities.

But don’t stop at hip hingeing.  It’s important to progress all the way through from hip hingeing through squatting and all the way to curling your back forwards.  IF you don’t curl your back (or indeed arch it backwards, or bend sideways) it suggests you’re fearful which increases the risk of pain.  Progressively increase your movements in all directions – the spine is an incredibly robust structure, and yours can be too.  Use it or lose it but don’t abuse it.  IF you’re battling with sensitivity, then just start where you are and very slowly progress to where you’d like to be.

Click here for Lesson 15 in the online course for lower back pain and sciatica.

Click here for Lesson 17 in the online course for lower back pain and sciatica.