Been avoiding an exercise because you’re worried about your back?

I can remember doing a pilates class many years ago where the instructor walked around the room barking at us “NEVER LOAD A ROTATED SPINE” repeatedly, and loudly. It turned out he had injured his back in the past picking something up while twisting and now had chronic back pain. He thought he was helping others to avoid the same. Instead he was creating fear and unhelpful beliefs about what our back can tolerate.

Just because you hurt your back doing a certain movement or exercise doesn’t mean you should never do that exercise or activity again.

If you hurt your back on holiday would you never go on holiday again?

If you hurt your back picking up your child would you never pick your child up again?

If you hurt your back having sex would you never have sex again?

Avoiding the activity forever is not the answer.

In fact it probably ends up making the problem worse. 

There’s a good chance if you hurt yourself doing a particular movement or exercise that it wasn’t the exercise that was the problem. There are many other more nuanced factors to consider

  • Has there been a recent change in training intensity? (load, rest, volume)

  • Were you properly energised? (sleep, food, hydration)

  • Were there life stressors at play? (work, family, the world)

Exercises should not be labelled as good or bad for a certain body part. There’s no such thing. If you see someone claiming an exercise is bad for you back or knees etc there’s a good chance they are just looking for clicks and attention; and don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart. Nor are they thinking critically or up to date with what the research is telling us about exercise and pain.

Need help getting back to what you love? Hit us up; we’re pretty good with that.