Low back pain doesn’t have to be triggered by an event or accident. More often than not it is the result of a build-up or aggregation of actions over a period of time.

 The problem is these damaging actions can be pretty mundane things. Normal things you don’t realise are doing you damage. That’s why in this tutorial I want to address some of the everyday causes of low back pain. Because awareness of what you might be doing wrong can actually be half the battle.

 Repeated bending of the spine

 You drop something and quickly bend down to pick it up. You bend down to talk to or play with young children. You wash up each evening in a sink that’s slightly too low for you.

 All of these are actions that might happen every day, but that you perform without really thinking, and often in a rush, giving your body little or no time to prepare for the movement.

 Add to this sit ups and crunches that are more deliberate actions but when...

I’m sure you often hear people use the phrases core stability and core strength, but are you clear on what they actually mean and how they differ from one another? In this tutorial I discuss stabilising and strengthening muscles and how to make sure you’re doing the right exercises to get the right results.

 What is the difference between core strength and core stability?

 Core strength is the ability to hold a position or posture for a period of time and / or against a load.

Core stability is more about coordination and balance. It’s the extent to which we can exert control over our core muscles, engaging them or switching them on and off as necessary to support our movements.

 As you can see from this, the two are complementary but not the same, so it makes sense that we would concentrate on different exercises and movements to develop each one.

Exercises for core stability

Exercises that build up core stability focus on the small muscles, those...

One thing my clients hear me talking about a lot is the importance of good posture when it comes to back health. But thanks to the prevalence of desk jobs and handheld devices, good posture is not something that comes particularly naturally to many people.  The good news, though, is that good posture can be learned (and bad habits broken!) – and doing so will make a world of difference to your back health over the longer term. 

How to develop better posture

Improving your posture involves more than stretching, it is about teaching your body to hold itself in a different way. And then to maintain this even when you’re not consciously thinking about it. 

This takes time and it takes patience. But the benefits of doing so are huge, including providing your spine with better support during everyday activities and improving your quality of life for longer. 

But posture training isn’t a standalone activity, it’s something that needs to be...

If you’ve been told to strengthen your low back muscles, it’s completely understandable you might think turning to back extension exercises is the way to go. After all, the more you work the muscles the stronger they’ll get, right? Well, not necessarily.

Just because your back muscles are strong does not mean you will be able to avoid back pain; I know plenty of really strong people who struggle with a bad back. Back extensions are not the answer, but there are other options. 

What do I mean by back extension exercises?

 When I talk about back extensions there are two types of exercise, in particular, that I am referring to:

1. Using a rack, leaning your hips onto the cushioned part and bending forwards. 
2. Laying on the floor, lifting your chest up and bending backwards. 

How do back extensions impact on your spine? 

It’s important to understand the impact that exercises such as back extensions can have on your spine and the muscles...

When you want to exercise your abdominals or core, it’s common to turn to sit ups, crunches and twists. After all, these are the exercises we’ve all been taught for years. And yes, perhaps you’ll see some benefits, providing you’re doing them correctly. But there is a trade-off – sit ups, crunches and twists can actually cause damage to your spine. 

There is a better way, however, and in this tutorial I show you how. 

What’s the problem with sit ups, crunches and twists?

There has been a tendency in the fitness industry over recent years to focus on body building techniques for core training, and even for rehabilitation. That is focusing on muscles individually and working them hard to strengthen them. But this is not how our bodies are design to work. We don’t use one muscle at a time, we use combinations of muscles to perform particular movements. This means that when we isolate a group of muscles to train them, we are in danger...

You may have heard a theory that it takes 90 days, or 10,000 hours to change a habit. While there is some truth in that, there is another level to changing habits, and that is 'deep practice'.

In a health and fitness context, deep practice can be applied to various objectives; from losing body fat, to improving fitness or refining sports skills. The repetition involved in deep practice begins a process known as 'myelination', which can be seen as the coating to an electrical wire, and allows the electrical signal which is sent when the brain 'fires' during an activity and allows it to move quickly, lending itself to a higher degree of accuracy in behaviour.

As we begin to repeat something, it allows us to refine a skill. So where does the development of a new habit come in? In fact, rather than directly coming from repetition, we can credit it to something which very few people like to do - making mistakes. Expose yourself to making a mistake - because it gives you the opportunity...

There are plenty of ways in which we are able to build and change habits, and this certainly applies in a health and fitness context. But before looking at exactly which methods lend themselves to positively altering our behaviour, it is fruitful to examine the science which goes on behind it. What exactly is happening in our body when we change a habit?

First, let's run through three definitions:

Central nervous system

The central nervous system comprises of the brain and the spinal cord, from which the peripheral nervous system stems.

Neuroplasticity 

This refers to the brain's ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections as life develops and changes.

Myelination

Neuroplasticity is enabled by myelination - myelin is physically the fatty white substance which surrounds the axon of nerve cells. 

So, when we change habits on the inside, myelination refers to what happens when these connections occur, which gradually become stronger...

When it comes to injury, your lower back is particularly vulnerable due to the number of moving parts in the area and the amount of weight it has to bear. If you’ve ever experienced lower back pain, you’ll know how debilitating it can be. That’s why protection is the name of the game. By learning more about the way you move and putting the right habits in place, you’ll be able to safeguard the health of your back for a long and active future.

In the above tutorial, I share the top seven things I recommend you start doing immediately to protect your lower back and guard against pain. In summary: 

1. Train movement over muscle 

When you head to the gym for a workout, I’ll bet many of the activities you include in your session are about training your muscles to make them bigger and stronger. Your lower back will be better served if you turn this on its head and start training or practising movements instead. This may not feel like traditional...

A good lordosis stretch should lengthen the hip flexors, here is a good one to use that gets more than one of the hip flexors. Lordosis in an exaggerated curve in the lumbar (lower) part of the spine. It happens because the some of the muscle of your hip become tight and stiff. By using the right lordosis stretch can help a lot and with the right exercise you can begin to reduce how tight and stiff these muscles are.

Watch the video for correct technique points

Making sure you do this lordosis stretch is key a factor when correcting lordosis. There are many muscles around your hip that it affect and a change in posture can change the muscle that is being stretched. In a video before this one you learnt a stretch that is very similar. By lifting the foot from the floor you change the muscle that is being stretched.

Do you want to correct your Lordosis? Click Here to to start my How to Correct Lordosis 12-Week Online Program

How hard should I stretch?

As you do this lordosis stretch...

The niggling lower back twinge or pain is often difficult for many health professionals to not only diagnose, but to also recommend an exercise regime that will help alleviate the pain and get to the root cause of the issue.

These types of back pain issues are sometimes referred to as non specific low back pain, but what does that term actually mean? In order to try and find an answer, the question was posed to Dr Stuart McGill, who has some very interesting views and rejects the “non specific” part of this description.

He says, ”If you have ever been told that you have non specific low back pain, then it is my opinion that there is no such thing, that is, unless you have already undergone a thorough assessment, that has involved provocative testing. By provocative testing, I really mean testing that involves the finding of motions, postures and loads that have actually caused the pain and contribute to make it feel worse. Once a good part of the cause has been...