In order to prevent lower back pain and potential lower back injury (and increase your training longevity), direct training for your lower back in a variety of positions...including rounded back...is incredibly beneficial.

And yes, that sounds like heresy, but having a rounded back position is not necessarily a bad thing...it does happen in the course of certain exercises and movement patterns.

The goal with this exercise is to TRAIN that position for strength so that your body is able to deal with that position more effectively.

When your body is strong in all positions, you're going to be a lot more injury-proof.

Doing this kind of light "small" strengthening work regularly is one of the reasons I can do what I do with crazy heavy weights and not get injured. It's good stuff.

 

How to Do It

In order to perform this one, you'll need a bar that you can set at about hip height (with your knees slightly bent). I'm using a bar set on the power rack rails, braced against the uprights of the rack. A Smith machine bar is also very well suited for this.

I'm using a pair of 20 lb dumbbells for this...you may even choose to start with no weight at all.

This movement should be done slowly and under complete control the entire time. This is not a heavy exercise or a pumping exercise. This is a "feel" exercise for the small, stabilizing, supporting muscles of the spine that often get overwhelmed and, therefore, underworked during heavy lifts like deadlifts where the larger muscles have to take over in order to support the load.

Not strengthening these small muscles is one of the potential reasons why you see guys who can deadlift monster weights throw their back out when they turn to pick up a piece of paper. They can handle the "front to back" stuff no problem, but the moment the position is not optimal, boom goes their back.

Brace your hips up against the bar, with your knees slightly bent. Reach down and grasp the dumbbells. Let your back round over when you lean forward. This is actually going to unload the spine at the start.

Now start coming up. The key here is to visualize straightening up one vertebra at a time...like a segmented unrolling, if you will, DRAWING the dumbbells up with you rather than trying to pull them up.

The weight is secondary to the movement...we want to feel those small spinal muscles activating and working.

Come up until you're almost vertical. Stay a bit short of full upright in order to keep tension on those spinal muscles.

Then lower yourself back down, reversing the movement, coming down one segment at a time.

Each rep should take about 20 seconds to complete. You're not using heavy weight and you are NOT in a hurry.

For this one, I would actually NOT recommend counting reps. You will likely get between 3 to 10 or so but I honestly would not even bother counting reps...get your mind in the muscle and focus on the movement instead.

You're not going anywhere near failure...just keep going until you feel your small spinal muscles are worked.

You can also perform this exercise with one dumbbell held in one hand so that you're getting off-center loading. This puts anti-rotational tension on the spinal muscles as you're performing the exercise, but doing so in a very light, very controlled manner that helps to strengthen and stabilize rather than putting dangerous torque on the spine.

When doing it with one dumbbell, keep your other empty hand directly in line with loaded hand in order to better gauge your body position. You want to keep your shoulders and hips square, not letting your spine twist at all. Keeping the hands level ensures your shoulders will stay in the proper position.

Alternate reps on each hand.

You can use this exercise as a finisher to your other training or as part of a lower-back warm-up. If you use it as a warm-up, keep even further away from failure than you would if you are doing it last.

Overall, this is a very simple, very effective exercise for targeting those small, but important, stabilizing muscles of the spinal column. If you train in a home gym and don't have a back extension machine, this is also a great alternative.

You can watch the full video of this one here.

Click here to start at the exercise demo.

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Your 30-Second Ab Solution...

This is a program I put together that will flatten your stomach AND improve lower back pain.

These are simple, 30-second exercises that you can do pretty much ANYWHERE (even sitting at your desk) to strengthen your core and help prevent back pain.

The exercises target the deep muscles that wrap around your midsection (the obliques and transverse abdominis) rather than the six-pack abs (which just go up and down and don't help support the core much at all).

Using these exercise regularly can have a MAJOR impact on your back and how your stomach looks.

Learn more about the 30-Second Ab Solution here.

Nick Nilsson
The Mad Scientist of Muscle

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https://youtu.be/q_VcCHOuHxg
http://www.fitstep.com/2/30-second-ab-solution/30-second-ab-solution.htm
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