Conditioning Research

I often see my pal Colin when I need some kinks working out of my back. As a body worker - massage with some of Tom Myer's Anatomy Trains approaches - he really know his stuff. He is currently using facebook to post interesting bits and pieces of remedial exercises and ideas on injury treatment. Go over to his page on facebook , and click "like" so that you can keep up with the stuff he is writing. (Also visit his blog ) Here is the latest post (which accurately describes my back problems!): When I get a new client one of the more common problem areas they come to me with will be their lower back. There’s also a pretty good chance that they spend most of the day sitting down so the source of the problem can, in some respects, be easy to identify. [ edit - by the way there is an interesting piece on sitting here ] Aside from poor posture and its associated problems one of the biggest contributory factors are the gluteals and gluteus medius in particular. When we a...

A couple of videos from Dr Doug McGuff, on how to train the lower back: First the physiology: then the exercises: hat tip

Rif pointed this out . Look at this guy's lower back musculature. Absolutely amazing.

In discussing back pain, some people - including Bill De Simone - have recommended that I look at McGill;s exercises. Here is a video of him looking at his ideas which are also described here :

I've posted some stuff in the past about back pain , particularly looking at TMS - the pain being real but a physical manifestation of something going on psychologically. Your mind creating real pain in your body to distract you from subconscious worries and anger and other emotions. Your mind is giving you real physical pain to distract you from what is really stressing you.... My interviews with Monte and Adam explain this all in more detail. Then I was at that workshop with mc last week and she was talking about how the body reacts unconsciously to threat....health is about threat modulation....Emotions effecting, causing something physical.....now something physical can affect emotions..... Things connect...that there are emotional factors at play, even at an unconscious level. In my interview with Frank Forencich he alluded to something similar: Depression is epidemic. The World Health Organization forecasts that, by 2020, “depression will be second only to heart disea...

Last week I posted an interview with Monte Hueftle , a runner and writer who specialises in running injuries generated by emotional factors, following in the teaching of Dr John Sarno There are other writers that have traced their own pain to emotional factors too. This is a guest post from one of them - Adam Rostocki . Adam is a martial artist who has battled with pain and finally conquered it through following Sarno's approach. I am convinced that much pain is emotional at its root. Mind Body Conditioning Physical Conditioning vs Psychological Conditioning I welcome the opportunity to speak to you about conditioning. As a serious martial artist for over 34 years I am well aware of the demands we all place on our bodies. In the course of training, I learned to use physical conditioning to make my body strong and increase my endurance and overall physical abilities. However, the type of conditioning I want to share with you today has nothing at all to do with the body. Inste...

In a recent post I talked about my back pain and about the idea that much of it is not due to physical injury, but to emotional factors ( TMS or Tension Myoneural Syndrome as the originator of the theory - Dr Sarno - now calls it). It is still real physical pain – not imaginary – but the cause is emotional. Public speaking can make you blush – a real physical reaction – but the cause is emotional. Physical pain can be the same thing. In this post I interview a guy called Monte Hueftle , a long distance runner who has also battled back pain. He explains where his pain came from, how he finally identified the cause and - crucialy - how he has managed to cure it. I first read Monte’s book – Get Rid of the Pain in your Butt Now! – a few years ago when my own back was playing up. My pain has returned recently and I have gone back to Monte’s book and one or two others. You may find this stuff a bit challenging and but I’d urge you to read and consider what Monte is proposing. ...

You may have picked up from reading this blog over the years that I have – occasionally - a bad back. Pain that ranges form stiffness after sitting for a while, to tightness that distorts my posture through to extreme spasms that will grip with great force and pain literally stopping me in my tracks and bringing me to me knees. Debilitating and depressing stuff for someone like me for whom exercise is fun, rewarding and an escape from life stresses. I first remember hurting my back after deadlifting, not a maximum weight by any means, but just before I was to give up my job to return to university. Ever since the back has been there. Sometimes – for months at a time there is no pain and I’ll train, run and climb mountains – sometimes it returns with a vengeance and sees me floored, carried out of the office and taken home. Hence my interest in keeping my back healthy, in mobility, in posture…. However as I’ve also hinted here a few times, I am personally convinced that stress a...

I've had a bad back the last week or so. Work has been busy recently and I've been doing 10-12 hour days over the last few weeks. Lots of sitting and lots of stress too. The lower back was getting very tight but it would always loosen off quite quickly when I started moving. Then last week we were out for lunch at a pub in the country and afterwards while walking round the loch I decided to climb a tree (!) and I got this massive back spasm that I've been recovering from all week. I've had episodes of back pain over the last 15 or so years and am used to it but each time it really makes me appreciate basic health and fitness. When you cannot move due to intense muscle spasms literally immobilising you, when you cannot put your own socks on or wipe your own arse then all this health and conditioning discussion seems a bit stupid. It is only when you are injured that you truly appreciate what it is to be fit, mobile and healthy. Of course when you are well, you soon...

Floating Bones posted a really good comment on my post on Tensegrity . Anatomytrains.com has a 20-page summary of the first edition There are several very good papers on biotensegrity.com why the compression-based model is fundamentally inadequate to explain our musculoskeletal system. Levin has been studying this for his whole career as a MD. Model-maker Tom Flemons has some great models on his site: tinyurl.com/toms-models . I talk about floating compression models on my website floatingbones.com . Part of what I add to the structural conversation is the impact of our nervous system on our structure.

That interview with Doug McGuff got me thinking quite a bit about the whole High Intensity thing. Here is a study which says that - for resistance training aimed at combating low back pain - there is no point in doing more than one set of an exercise. (Incidentally the same as was found in this review - The preponderance of resistance-training studies shows no difference in the gains in muscular strength, hypertrophy, power, or endurance as a result of performing a greater number of sets. ) Randomized trial comparing the effects of one set vs two sets of resistance exercises for outpatients with chronic low back pain and leg pain. AIM: Progressive resistance exercises (PRE) are prescribed to reverse the deconditioning associated with chronic back pain. The spine rehabilitation program has utilized 2 sets of progressive resistance exercises during each session, with increased resistance between sets, and with successive sessions. Exercise literature has challenged the need for multi...

Here is one for you - a nice little free booklet of exercises to assist in correcting anterior pelvic tilt, a common cause of back pain. I know that stretching out the psoas can often relieve my back pain and this booklet explains why a tight psoas can be a problem, tugging your pelvis out of position. Mobility work is another route to loosening our muscles of course ( as in Scott Sonnon's booklet ). Anyway, check out the booklet: 4-essential-strategies-for-the-correction-of-anterior-pelvic-tilt The guy that wrote that has some good free videos on Youtube too, for example

A couple of weeks or so ago I posted about Esther Gokhale's book - 8 steps to a pain free back . I know that a few of you found that a useful post. Here is a lecture from Esther talking about her approach to posture.

This is (another) interesting video from Rob's Mountain Athlete . It shows Coach Corrin Berg doing some post-rehab work with someone who has a lower back injury. The exercise is one I've seen in Gray Cook's Athletic Body in Balance book. Download some of his articles here .

A bad back For the past 16 years or so I've had a "bad back". I originally strained something doing deadlifts and there have been repeated bouts of back spasms ever since. Sometimes they have been severe, leaving me on the floor and almost unable to move. On other occasions it is more of a continual minor ache. Sometimes I'll be OK for months on end and capable of some relatively good athletic performances - big walks in the hills, demanding met con circuits even - when I did more lifting - some heavy deadlifts . That is context for this post. You see I'm always on the look out for thoughts about back health. I get a regular sports massage and have learned that trigger point therapy and stretching the glutes and psoas is really important for me - just to relieve the effects of sitting all day at a desk. I have learned much from Rif for example. In addition to the physical side, I must also say that I believe that there is a big psychological element t...