Strickland Fitness

Back Pain and Tight Muscles

This is definitely not a diagnosis; however, lower back pain can be caused by tight muscle in the legs, hips or abdominals. I have many new clients that come to me with one of their goals being to eliminate lower back pain. If this pain is not caused by soft tissue, nerve or spinal damage (which is out of my range to treat), the first thing I look for is tightness. Many times this is the problem. After a specific and persistent stretching routine, their back pain is slowly eliminated. Besides the upper leg muscles, abdominals, and muscles in the hips attaching to the pelvis, so do all the lower back muscles. If the any of the upper leg, abdominal or hip muscles are tight, that causes constant tugging on the pelvis. If the pelvis is being tugged on, then so are all the lower back muscles which are attached to it. This tugging on the pelvis is called a pelvic tilt. If the pelvis is tilted either way of the neutral position, this can cause extreme stress on your lower back. The purpose of stretching your legs, hips, and abdominals is to release the tight muscles and get your pelvis into a neutral position at all times. What are some things that can cause tight muscles? The first and most common thing is sitting down for long periods of time. Sitting causes the abs and hip flexors to be in a shortened position. The shortening causes an anterior pelvic tilt (the pelvis tilts forward). This puts your lower back muscles into a compressed state when standing. If you have a sit-down job, stretching the hip flexors and working on strengthening the abdominals will help to release your pelvis. Running is also a common reason for back pain. Now, I am not saying you shouldn’t run (it is a great cardio workout and stress reliever), however, what you do before and after your run can help to relieve back pain. Besides impact on the spine, running will cause a lot of your leg and hip muscles to tighten up. If you are a runner, be sure to do a good warm up of active stretching (see warming up post) and an immediate post run stretch and another one before bed. It is a good idea to stretch the morning after a run as well. I will post another article about specific stretches to do to release your pelvis and help eliminate back pain. If you have any specific questions, you can email me.

To really define your chest, you have to hit it from all angles. A lot of people focus on one or two chest exercises to work the pecs. In fact, the list of chest exercises is long, ranging from light to intense. There are also ways to challenge yourself outside of just adding more weight. Let’s take a look at a few common and a few not so common pectoral exercises.

Most gyms have stationary machines and free weights. Each of these can vary how you work your chest along with the rest of your body. The stationary machines where you sit down and press the weight forward are very one dimensional. They stabilize the rest of the body while focusing the isolation on the chest. This is great if you are doing very heavy weights or are a beginner to weight lifting. The chest fly machine is also great for chest shaping and isolation while stabilizing the rest of the body. In both of these exercises, the shoulders will be working as well to move the weight, but the little muscles that help stabilize the muscles in the shoulders aren’t as active.

The next set of chest exercises add a little less stabilization of the shoulders causing them to work a little harder. A standard flat bench press is a great chest builder. Being that the bar is free in movement, the shoulders have to work to keep the bar in one plane of motion. The rest of the body is stabilized by the bench you are laying on. When doing the bench press, concentrate on keeping your spine in a neutral position and not letting it arch when pressing the weight up. An incline bar press changes the angle at which you work your pecs and adds a little more shoulder work than a flat bench. To finish it off, hit the decline bar press for an all around chest blast.

The last set of exercises adds size and shape to the chest while forcing the shoulder stabilizers to work extra hard. A dumbbell press on a flat, incline, or decline bench leaves the arms to move in all directions while pressing or lowering the weight. This is what causes the shoulders to work even harder while trying to keep the weight in one plane of motion. Using cables for a chest press or flys are great for the pecs, shoulders, and the core. Being that you don’t have a bench to lay on, the cables force your core to engage.

For an all around strong and defined chest, mix up the chest workouts. Do some with free weights or bars to keep the shoulder stabilizers strong. Use cables to work your core. Use machines to hit it hard. Again, if you are new to working out, begin on the machines and work your way up to the free weights and cables.

Body weight bicep curl

When we do exercises, there is a constant focus on the concentric motion (contraction or shortening on the muscle). However, the eccentric motion (relaxing or lengthening of the muscle) is just as important. For this example, we will look at the biceps. If you do bicep curls to add size or tone up your arms, this great addition will help with both.

To do a basic standing bicep curl (dumbbells or barbell):

Stand with you feet shoulder width apart, slight bend in the knees, spine and shoulders in a neutral position, and your elbows pinned to your sides.

Without changing the position of your shoulders, spine, or elbows, raise the weight to the front of your shoulders. You should be using a weight that doesn’t compromise your form and it should take about 2 seconds to raise the weight. This is the concentric movement. While lowering the weight, concentrate on trying to contract your triceps (back of the arms). This makes the lowering (eccentric movement) to be slow and controlled and it forces the biceps to work in both directions getting the maximum of each repetition. Lowering the weight should take about 4 seconds to complete. Focusing on both movements of any exercise will optimize your results. Your muscles will work harder and more efficiently and you will feel the difference.

In the picture shown, I am doing a version of a bicep curl using my own body weight. The movement of lowering my body using my biceps is done in the same way. I focus on contracting my triceps and controlling my eccentric motion. Feel the burn!

There is one common mistake people make when training their back. That mistake is that they are not usually training their back even when doing exercises for the back. Let’s look at the Lat pull down. This exercise is used to train a large muscle in the back called the Latissimus Dorsi (Lat). The Lat is responsible for shoulder extension, adduction, and rotation. It also plays a role in the extension and lateral flexion of the spine. Now when we sit down at the Lat pull down machine, we know we should be lowering the bar TO THE FRONT OF OUR CHIN (not behind the head) and releasing it back up, thus working our Lats. After all, it is a Lat exercise. What normally happens is we don’t even get the Lats firing and end up using our arms to complete the action. We use our arms everyday so we know how to get those muscles firing. With the arms doing most of the work, we are now doing a variation of a bicep curl. Ever do a back exercise and wonder why your arms are tired and you don’t really feel anything in the back? The arms are working harder than the back. Let’s solve that problem.

We will use the Lat pull down again for our example. You are sitting at the machine, your back is straight and not arched and you have your arms fully extended above your head gripping the bar. As you begin to pull the bar down in front of your chin, concentrate on pulling your shoulder blades down into your back pocket. You should feel your shoulders drop down as well. This action of dropping your shoulder blades will activate your Lats. Keep them dropping as you bring the bar down to your chin bending at the elbows. Now as you begin to slowly release the bar back to the original position of arms above the head, don’t let the shoulder blades leave your back pocket. Try and keep them down until you have reached the starting position. At this point you can release your shoulder blades and prepare for the next rep. It should take 2 seconds to pull the bar down (positive motion) and 4 seconds to bring the bar back to its original spot (negative motion).

You will feel your arms working because they are helper muscles in this exercise. The real burn should be in the back. Concentrate on this concept and you will be well on your way to the perfect “V” shape.

Looking for a great chest exercise without any weights? Try the push-up pyramid.

I learned this chest blaster from a fellow trainer at my gym. This exercise is best done with a partner. Begin by doing one push-up. When you stop, your partner does one push-up. You then do 2 push-ups. Your partner will do 2 push-ups when you finish. Continue this alternating push-up sequence to 10 push-ups. If you can make it to 10 push-ups, continue back down to one.

Form is very important!! If your form begins to fail as the push-ups get harder, drop to your knees and do knee push-ups to complete the pyramid.

Good luck!