Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Healthline

I teach martial arts, yoga, and other classes at gyms on evenings and Saturdays. This morning I watched the class before mine. The music was loud. I remembered the saying "If it's too loud, you're too old."

When you read the following, remember that you already know it injures to bend "wrong," as in the photo at left, with your upper body bent over instead of upright. You know not to pick up a suitcase or child like that. Previous posts explain how that gradually hurts your lower back and discs.

The class ran a circuit:

They bent wrong to pick up a barbell for ten deadlifts, staying bent over while lifting.
They put the barbell down wrong (bending over) and ran to do ten toe touches - more bad bending over.
They ran to do abdominal crunches, rounding their back forward over and over.
They got up and kicked a target baffle, rounding their back and pushing their chin forward like a pigeon with each kick so that each impact transmitted to their spine.
They ran across the room, each footfall landing heavily so that each impact transmitted to their knees, hip, and spine.
Then leg lifts, bending forward at the hip over and over.
Back to bent-over deadlifts, then alternate toe-touches - bending over and twisting side to side (more pressure on discs than just bending over), then sitting and bringing knees to chest, then deadlifts.
They bent over wrong to get dumbbells for bent over triceps curls (healthier when done standing upright.)
Then standing squats by bending the hip forward over and over. The instructor coached them to stick their behind far out in back. This pinches the lower back adding to a second kind of back pain. Posts coming soon will tell more.
They reclined with feet up, putting body weight on their rounded shoulders to bicycle their legs in the air, and so on, rounding, bending, and pressuring discs and lower back structures for the 45-minute class.
They bridged up on shoulder and feet, to "stretch the other way" even though it bent their neck forward.
They ended by hanging forward to stretch and bringing each arm across the front of their body to stretch the back of the shoulder. This is counter-productive. Most people are already round-shouldered from sitting and bending forward all day. The personal trainer outside the room was doing similar exercises.

One of the students said she comes to the class to strengthen because of back pain. The trainer said he also had back pain and that is why he exercises. Hopefully you can now see part of why.

I'm not just an Ivory-tower egghead who wants you to reduce activity, never lift heavy things, or never move quickly or through a full range of motion. Just the opposite. I'm a former full contact kickboxer (undefeated) in the US, the Netherlands, and Thailand. I want to show you how to have a healthier, more fun and active life, where you stop pain and injuries and do more. The exercises I learned in over 30 years of martial arts were all the usual but injurious ones. Many students dropped out with injuries. It was not the martial arts but some of the exercises. But which? I went back to the lab to study until I found why the injuries were occurring and what will train you better than what we were using. If it works better, I want to know and do it.

Watch other people exercising. It will remind you of many things to avoid. Start your way back to healthy movement by noticing what your exercises are really doing.

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Labels: arm, disc, fix pain, injury, lordosis, lower back, martial arts, practice of medicine, sciatica, strength, yoga

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8 Comments:

At Sunday, September 17, 2006 5:42:00 PM, Anonymous said…

OK, but every powerlifting coach, EliteFTS, Pavel Tsatsouline, Soviet Fitness Trainers, etc all say to protect your back, you should reach back with your rear like you are sitting in a chairwhen squatting with weights. Even Chinese face-the-wall squats (bodyweight only) emphasize that.
Qigong also. Maybe there is a difference between weighted squatting and bodyweight only??
At Monday, September 18, 2006 5:23:00 PM, Healthline said…

Excellent that you asked this. It is important to ask so we can understand, not just repeat and do what "everyone" says.

Sometimes people hear that bending forward to lift can cause back injury, so they overdo arching backward, thinking that will prevent back injury. One problem is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. They exaggerate the arch. Overarching compresses and pinches the lower spine, causing a different kind of injury, whether it is weighted squatting or bodyweight only (another good point that you asked).

Overarching lets you lift more weight, just like lifting wrong by overbending forward. Overarching shifts some (sometimes most) of the weight to your lower spine and off your muscles. That is another reason some coaches teach it. You can lift more (initially). It "works" just like smoking works to lose weight – it works but is not healthy over the long run.

This area of overarching (hyperlordosis) is a topic in which I have large interest as a scientist who researches how to make people (and military) go "Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger)" and as a back pain doctor who sees their x-rays afterward. I have done years of studies on overarching with hundreds of patients and students. I am familiar with the methods you mentioned, having studied them and tried them, as well as being Russian and growing up with Russian training methods (sometimes includes ice baths and beatings).

Here is an exciting puzzle piece for you. When you reduce overarching to reposition your spine to a healthier smaller arch, the muscles that do that are your abdominal muscles. When you allow the overarching, you are not using abs. Repositioning your spine to stop the overarching that injures is how abs support your back - not by strengthening abs through conventional abdominal exercises (that cause their own problems by the chronic rounding forward). I will explain this in posts to come. I developed an entire core training method, initially for the military and now used by police and top spine centers around the world, called The Ab Revolution. See this on my web site www.DrBookspan.com

In post #8 to come, I had already planned to start showing how overarching the lower back and sticking the behind out in back, a common visual in fitness, contributes to high rates of "mystery" lower back pain. Good work for being right on target in wanting to know.

For your last good question - to squat for exercise or actually sit in a chair, it is a sign of some pretty weak legs if you have to lean forward and "reach back with your rear" to get down there. Hold your body upright and lower lightly. Keep your heels down. Feel the difference. Don't lean over to sit at the table or you’ll get your tie in your soup.

Keep the good thinking coming. Try the cool new things I will show you. The idea is to retrain your body to be stronger, and also move in healthy ways so you can enjoy your life.
At Tuesday, January 02, 2007 3:09:00 PM, Anonymous said…

Would you consider the one legged squat "pistol" a bad exercise since you have to lean forward in order to keep your balance when squating down to the floor?
Is it possible to do the pistol without rounding the back in the end?
At Friday, January 05, 2007 10:05:00 PM, Healthline said…

Hi Eddie, the good news is, yes you can to do the "pistol" without rounding. You do not have to lean forward. Here is how:
Keep your heel flat down on the floor and hold your body upright and your back straight. You practice better balance this way also.

Lifting the heel to stand on the ball of the foot shifts your weight forward onto the knee, increasing several bad forces on the joint. A problem with doing the "pistol" is the twisting force on the knee joint when rising from the floor on one leg. (The other leg is held out in front, giving a visual image of a gun, and so the name.)

Instead of doing the pistol as an exercise, it is good leg exercise and good Achilles tendon stretch to just use healthful bending around the house in Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending . It is good to be able to do the pistol, for all the times you need to rise and move easily. But you don't want to ruin your knees from practicing it. I will post more on this and other leg exercises. I will also post soon on the benefits of sitting in a full squat and rising, which is like the pistol, only on both legs. Keep both heels down on the floor, instead of teetering on the ball of the feet. Good stretch, exercise, and keeps forces lower on the knees.

Keep the good questions coming.
At Tuesday, May 20, 2008 1:13:00 PM, Unknown said…

I have been perusing your posts and find them very interesting. I think that I stand on the ball of my feet, like I am tipping forward, I do not know why. And I end up with painful feet. I have been trying to consciously put my heels down, but I have to think about it. Why? My father is turning 85 in a week. Recently, he had a fall (okay, turned out to be a good thing as blocked carotid was discovered), and I came to help. He was supposed to use a walker, but then he told me he didnt need it, and did what I thought was a bizarre thing. He like ran, like tippytoed to the bookshelf. I was very puzzled by his standing on his toes, but its probably the balls of his feet. Just like my tendency! Can you suggest anything for this? Is it us not using our abdominals?
At Monday, August 25, 2008 9:08:00 AM, Stephan Tual said…

Hello Jolie, I've discovered your blog recently and have been reading it compulsively since then. I guess this is the first post that raises a question for me - the big about deadlifts.

You mention in this post that the deadlift itself isn't bad, but the way that class executed it was. So, what's the proper way to deadlift to reduce injury? I'm confused because not matter how I check my deadlift technique, I see no way around the forward bending.

Thank you for your great website!
At Monday, August 25, 2008 7:14:00 PM, Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…

Welcome Mr. Tual, thank you. There are different kinds of deadlifting, as you know. Did you mean straight legged or bent-knees? Effect of bent over lifting on the discs is shown in Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle. If you mean bent knees, see how you like body upright with neutral spine summarized in Free Exercise and Free Back and Knee Pain Prevention - Healthy Bending to prevent disc protrusion and Prevent Back Surgery to understand avoiding hyperextension from too much compression in the other direction.
At Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:27:00 PM, Dada said…

Dr Bookspan,
I've just got your book "Health & Fitness in Plain English". In bad exercice part, (p255) you wrote that straigth-legged dead lifting should be avoided.

Do you also advise to stop normal (I mean with bending the knee) deadlifting ?

If I may summarize the exercices:
- squatting with normal spine is good (even with weights)
- overhead or benchpress with normal spine is good
- lunge (even with dumbell or barbell) with normal spine is good

Thanks.

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Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending

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