Tidbit Tuesday - Low Back Pain & Gluteal Amnesia

Hello,

Welcome to another Tidbit Tuesday where we aim to teach you something new about health, nutrition, lifestyle, training, and so much more, every week!

Today we are talking about low back pain and gluteal amnesia!

Do you often find yourself hunched over at the end of the day, looking like the "Robax" character with pins in his back?

It is no accident that he is depicted with pain while hunched over and standing upright as the pins are removed and the pain goes away.

Our pelvis and spine must work in harmony for us to move well, pain free.

Our pelvis acts as a table that our spine stands on. If the table isn't level one or two discs will slip out of place to try and correct for the tilted table.

Think of the arcade game "Stacker". With the goal being to stack the squares on top of each other until you reach the top.

Albeit our spine has some natural curves to it, we often try to accentuate those curves into looking greater than they are.

Over time this will cause extra stress on the body and can lead to damage in our spine and spinal cord.

Once we start to experience back pain it interrupts the signal to the rest of our body, especially anything below the point of pain.

If you are experiencing pain in your back, neck, spine, or pelvis then I strongly recommend that you see a medical professional and have any injuries accurately diagnosed before proceeding with any type of physical activity.

But what does back pain have to do with your glutes?

Well, back pain means the brain is not sending a strong enough signal and inhibiting the glute muscles from firing appropriately. This makes them less efficient and unable to produce their full potential of strength and power.

In other words, the pain makes your body not function properly, forcing your body to compensate with other muscles.

If your glutes remain inhibited, your table can not realign, your spine remains out of sequence, and the pain never goes away.

It is a vicious cycle!

To find out if you are dealing with gluteal amnesia try this simple test:

While lying on your back with your knees bent, straighten one leg and perform a single leg bridge. Hold your hips in the air for 10 seconds and feel for what muscles are working hard to keep you up and if this movement brings out any back pain.

What do you feel?

1. Back

2. Glutes (butt muscles)

3. Hamstrings (back of upper leg)

4. Quads (front of upper leg)

What muscles were working hard to keep your hips up?

If it was anything other than your glutes as the primary muscle group, you have a

coordination issue in how your body is producing hip extension (aka gluteal amnesia).

Did this movement produce back pain?

As you bridge on one leg, this pain is a response to the uneven forces that are being placed on your back. This is often due to the inability of the glutes to kick on appropriately and contribute to hip extension, which means the erectors of your low back must pull double time.

When this happens a ton of force is placed on the spine, which leads to the pain you felt.

If you're experiencing pain, then we must strengthen your glute muscles and their coordination with the rest of your body.

Introduce a solid warmup for your glutes into your workouts. Also, don't be afraid to ensure they are warm and engaged before doing any compound or heavy movements.

Start by making sure you have raised your heart rate and core body temperature. Usually, some cardiovascular activity and some bodyweight compound movements will do the trick. Make sure that you are feeling your glutes engage during the warmup.

Next, if you're feeling a little stiff you can perform 2 - 5 minutes of foam rolling and soft tissue work to make sure your muscles are gliding the way they are supposed to.

With the body warm and moving well we can start to activate and mobilize through a full range of motion, picking 2 to 4 exercises for the targeted area.

For your glutes you might perform a set of full-depth, bodyweight squats or lunges, as well as some Cusack squats, working on reaching a full range of motion.

And finally, we need to increase the intensity gradually. As we warmup our bodies and loosen out tight muscles we can get ourselves ready to move into working sets.

This might mean moving from bodyweight to adding additional load, making our movements more explosive, or decreasing rest times between sets.

At the end of the day, we must ensure a proper warmup to prevent injury and maximize our training potential.

To get the most out of your warmup you should use the RAMP protocol. But that will be a discussion for next week!

Happy training!

Your friend in health & fitness,

Coach Sean