Mistakes That Aggravate Back Pain During Exercise

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome. This is a special podcast today. I'm Chris Janke. I am a fitness trainer,

[00:00:08] been doing it for 20 years, specializing in specifically helping people get rid of their

[00:00:15] back pain through exercise. And so today I want to talk about the common mistakes that aggravate

[00:00:22] back pain during exercise, different things that I've seen over the years people do. And it

[00:00:28] potentially makes their back pain worse. So first off, I want to just talk about

[00:00:36] back pain in general. Number one, tell you that I am not a doctor. I never advocate

[00:00:45] trying to exercise away something that is structurally wrong with you. Say you have a

[00:00:50] broken bone or you have herniated a disc or anything like that. Or you've been in some

[00:00:57] accident, maybe there's nerve damage. There's always somebody to talk to who's in a higher

[00:01:06] position than me. And so that's my legalese right there. But I would also say the number

[00:01:15] one person to talk to is yourself. So whether you are investigating doctors to go to for your pain

[00:01:24] or you are in the middle of an exercise, you are the one that has to live with the consequences.

[00:01:30] So I really want to hit that one home because aside from all those really serious injuries,

[00:01:36] you know, those big things that happen to us, accidents, etc., a lot of the everyday aches

[00:01:45] and pains that we have can be mitigated through proper exercise. Now that is provided that

[00:01:53] one reason that aches and pains are there in the first place is because of our sedentary

[00:01:59] environment. So in general, we human beings in the 21st century, modern civilization don't need

[00:02:08] to move as much as we used to. And I'm talking, you know, you can look short term, you know,

[00:02:15] 50 years ago we were our ancestors, our grandparents were moving a lot more than we

[00:02:19] are now. But 5000 years ago, our ancestors were moving a whole bunch more than they are now.

[00:02:27] And they weren't sitting for six, eight, 12 hours a day like many of us do at our jobs.

[00:02:35] And because of that, they generally would have had a healthier frame. Now obviously,

[00:02:42] along with that, there were other potential drawbacks to living in that time. I would not

[00:02:47] trade living when and where we do now for anything. I think we live in the best time

[00:02:53] and in the best place. If you are listening to my words right now, that means you probably

[00:02:58] have some sort of smart device to make your life a lot easier. So what we can do is make

[00:03:03] sure that we do not make our back pain any worse. So here are some of the common

[00:03:09] mistakes that people do while they're exercising. So number one is improper form. So whether you are

[00:03:19] doing a stretching exercise, maybe a core exercise, a weightlifting exercise, doing the wrong form

[00:03:26] will automatically change where you feel the work, you know, changing from a bicep curl,

[00:03:32] let's say you're doing a bicep curl and the weight is too heavy. If you start arching your back

[00:03:38] and pushing your hips forward, trying to get a little momentum, that automatically is changing

[00:03:43] the exercise. We can still technically call it a bicep curl, but it's also like a hip extension.

[00:03:49] And maybe you're hyper extending and in that case putting your back at risk. So the very easy

[00:03:57] solution to that is to drop the amount of weight that you're lifting. Your body has no idea

[00:04:03] how much weight you're lifting. You know, your muscle doesn't say, oh, this is six pounds.

[00:04:06] This is 12 pounds, whatever. It knows tension. So the way to make sure that you're staying safe

[00:04:14] and healthy is to drop the amount of weight and go slower. Now it's very easy for me to say it's

[00:04:22] another thing while you're doing it. And we have all these ambitions, oh, I can do five more reps.

[00:04:27] Another thing that I did because I knew that, you know, I just like anybody else have

[00:04:35] a bit of an ego and I want to succeed. And so for me, it was like, oh, I have to get these 15 reps.

[00:04:42] And instead of that, this, this I did maybe like eight or 10 years ago, I stopped counting

[00:04:47] repetitions and I started going for time. I just set a one minute timer and I just do as many reps

[00:04:54] at a slow pace as I can with whatever weight that I'm lifting. And then I set the weight

[00:04:58] down and I go a little bit lighter because the goal is to finish the full minute of repetitions

[00:05:03] at whatever weight you're doing on a day where I feel maybe tired. Some days I will do bicep curls

[00:05:11] with literally no weight in my hands. And that is something that if you want to stay pain free

[00:05:18] and you don't want to aggravate your back or any other body part while you're lifting,

[00:05:22] that's one thing that you want to start doing. So improper lifting during exercise. The next

[00:05:28] one is related, but it's a little bit different. And that's just overdoing it in general. So overdoing

[00:05:35] it can come in two categories. You can either overdo it by having too much intensity, so too heavy

[00:05:43] or too fast, or too much volume. You're doing too many reps, you're doing too many sets,

[00:05:48] just the number. So that so we can sort of sort of break that down into quality or quantity,

[00:05:54] right? Quality, too fast, too intense quantity. You're just doing too much. We don't need to lift

[00:06:02] weights as much as many of us think. Two days a week is plenty. When I see some of these body

[00:06:10] builders talk about how they do like 25 sets per body part per week or something crazy like that,

[00:06:17] I just go, wow, I don't know what I'm doing because I'm only doing three to five per body

[00:06:22] part per week. And that's, you know, I teach two classes. So okay, maybe I do double six to 10,

[00:06:29] but that's because I'm teaching two classes back to back to my clients. But what I recommend each of

[00:06:34] them is six, like three to five, because they're only taking the one class. That's the life of a

[00:06:42] trainer, right? You tend to overdo it more than the average person because we're teaching all

[00:06:46] you guys. So if you've ever been to one of my classes though, you know that I don't,

[00:06:51] I very rarely repeat exercises like I don't say, okay, we just did one set of bicep curls,

[00:06:58] we're going to do another one. Rarely do I do that. And the main reason is because if you're

[00:07:02] doing a drop set successfully in a drop set is what I described a few minutes ago where you start

[00:07:07] with a certain weight. And then when it gets too heavy, you drop it and you get a lighter weight.

[00:07:12] When you're doing a drop set successfully, that's generally all you need is that one set of one

[00:07:18] minute. And then if it turns out that maybe that wasn't heavy enough, then two days from now,

[00:07:24] you can do one set slightly heavier. And that's one set, one to two sets per body part.

[00:07:30] The next thing that I want to talk about is neglecting core and stability. I used to be

[00:07:36] guilty of this big time when I was in high school. All I wanted to do was lift weights and get big

[00:07:42] and strong. This is one reason why I hurt my back. I never did core. I never did flexibility. I never

[00:07:49] tried to stabilize my spine. And what I would tell people, even those people who are kind of solid

[00:07:58] and they're sold on weightlifting and the benefits of it, if you want to be strong,

[00:08:04] let's say you play football, basketball, something like that, you're doing some sport where you need

[00:08:08] a lot of strength. That strength is meaningless unless you have a strong core. And it's that core

[00:08:14] that takes the pressure from the ground that goes through your legs and then it goes up your core

[00:08:19] and then it transmits through your arms and into your hands. Without that strong core,

[00:08:23] it doesn't happen. Nothing happens. And then also without that strong core, you have a weak

[00:08:31] lower spine. Your back is going to be a sitting duck for pain. So next is, this is really important

[00:08:39] because again, this was me, I was guilty of this, ignoring the warning signs and pushing through pain.

[00:08:46] No pain, no gain is not accurate. You should not experience actual pain when you're exercising.

[00:08:54] A more accurate description would be something like no burn, no earn. Right? So you do want

[00:08:59] that light burn, especially again if you're lifting weights or say doing some light aerobic type.

[00:09:07] So no burn, no earn rather than no pain, no gain. And the last one I want to talk about today as we

[00:09:12] wrap up is not addressing muscle imbalances. Now, if you look at yourself in the mirror when

[00:09:18] you're standing, your body should resemble the Washington Monument as in it's vertical, right?

[00:09:27] You have your shoulders, hips, knees, ankles from the side view, your ears are over your shoulders.

[00:09:32] All of that is visual evidence that your muscles are balanced. If you have one shoulder up or

[00:09:40] you're rotated or anything like that, that's visual evidence that you have a muscle imbalance.

[00:09:46] So not addressing those muscle imbalances is a very, very

[00:09:50] potentially costly mistake. So again, to summarize the common mistakes that aggravate

[00:09:58] back pain during exercise, I would say these are definitely top five. So number one, improper form,

[00:10:05] number two, overdoing it, number three, neglecting your core and flexibility,

[00:10:12] number four, ignoring your warning signs and pushing through the pain, the no pain, no gain.

[00:10:18] And then number five, not addressing muscle imbalances. So those are the five ways that people

[00:10:23] make generally make mistakes with their back pain. So do the opposite. Do workouts that

[00:10:33] accept where you are that are slow, methodical and slowly take you from where you are to that

[00:10:40] next step where you want to be. That's it for today. Again, I'm Chris Janky and my website

[00:10:47] Chrisjanky.com, J-A-N-K-E. If you have any other questions, I am really excited to coach all of you

[00:10:57] as we progress through our fitness goals. And again, any questions you may have, feel free to let me know.