There are a ton of massage guns in my amazon feed lately! Not gonna lie, I totally bought one! Apparently it's a hot ticket item lately. Understandably so, because right about the 2-week mark people realize that that whole "new year new me" workout was a little too aggressive.
They're not alone. Did you know that low back pain is the leading cause of non-impact chronic injury? You've probably heard that sitting is terrible for you. But it's likely no one explained to you how or why.
Here is what you need to know right now in order to stop being in pain and keep that pain from coming back.
ready?
Your back is weak.
That's the tip of the iceberg, but here's what's under the surface.
Sitting causes your hip flexors to stay in a shortened position. This trains your nervous system to see "short hip flexors'' as a natural set point. Unfortunately, this also causes the muscle on the opposite side of that joint, your glutes, to relax and eventually weaken.
Glutes keep you upright (as in “the opposite of sitting”).
Ever see a gorilla butt? It's embarrassingly small for such a beast of an animal! That's because they don't spend much time standing up.
Sitting causes your hip flexors to stay in a shortened position. This trains your nervous system to see "short hip flexors'' as a natural set point.
How do you know if your hip flexors are tight (and subsequently have weak glutes)?
When you do a bodyweight squat, your back doesn’t stay straight.
After standing for long periods, your back starts to hurt and you need to find something to lean on.
You've pulled your back muscle while picking up something light.
You have low back pain that won't go away.
You've purchased some tools, like a massage gun, in order to try and get rid of back pain.
You've spent way too much on massages and pain medication for low back pain.
See a pattern here?
When your glutes are weak due to tight hip flexors, chronic bad posture, neglect, then your low back muscles pick up the slack in order to keep you upright. They're designed to stabilize the spine ABOVE the pelvis, not carry the weight of your upper body.
Also, your back muscles are slow-fatiguing muscles (think endurance runner) as opposed to your glutes and hip muscles which are fast-fatiguing (think powerlifters). When you try to engage endurance muscles to lift heavy weight, then they get burned out quickly. And BAM! back pain!
When you try to relax these muscles, all you're doing is weakening them further. This means that your glutes stay inhibited, your hip flexors get tighter, and your pain snaps back as soon as you stand up again.
When you try to relax these muscles, all you're doing is weakening them further.
Here's the good news!
Most low back pain is REVERSIBLE and PREVENTABLE!
Step 0: Leave your low back alone!
Step 1. Get up and move! I don't just mean stand up and get coffee. I mean get up and do these hip flexor stretches.
Step 2: Strengthen your core with this 4 minute circuit:
Step 3. Strengthen your core (further) and glutes with this 12 minute circuit.
Note: You can use these workouts as warm-ups or stand-alone workouts.
Often what feels like a tight muscle is a weak muscle that has been overworked. Always start your training with stabilization and balance exercises to strengthen both the deep stabilizer muscles (the ones you DON’T see) as well as the superficial muscles (the ones that give you “shape”).
Those are just baby steps! Try it out and let me know what you think!
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