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Other/Mixed Should You Fear Lumbar Flexion?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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North Coast Miller said:
People with shoulder pain.
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Fair enough. I guess I should’ve said “normally you wouldn’t pack your shoulder …” I have been guilty of trying to consciously control movements to “correct” them. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it makes more problems down the road because I wasn’t moving naturally.

I tried to make this point in another thread but it seemed like it flew by…. Pain changes how we move, obviously. What some people don’t seem to take into account is how the ways we change our movements to compensate around that pain can also have downstream effects. After any injury, the goal should be return to normal, automatic movement (or as close as possible to it). To perhaps take a page from Tim Anderson, children don’t think about how they’re moving. Adults with aches and pains do, however. Imo it’s best to figure out how get back to moving without thinking about it, to the best of individual capability.

I feel a little obliged to leave an obvious caveat: of course we want to be conscious of our movement during training.
 
bluejeff said:
Fair enough. I guess I should’ve said “normally you wouldn’t pack your shoulder …” I have been guilty of trying to consciously control movements to “correct” them. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it makes more problems down the road because I wasn’t moving naturally.

I tried to make this point in another thread but it seemed like it flew by…. Pain changes how we move, obviously. What some people don’t seem to take into account is how the ways we change our movements to compensate around that pain can also have downstream effects. After any injury, the goal should be return to normal, automatic movement (or as close as possible to it). To perhaps take a page from Tim Anderson, children don’t think about how they’re moving. Adults with aches and pains do, however. Imo it’s best to figure out how get back to moving without thinking about it, to the best of individual capability.

I feel a little obliged to leave an obvious caveat: of course we want to be conscious of our movement during training.
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To me, part of the adaptive response should be improved movement mechanics, greater proprioceptive awareness all the time. I almost never use haphazard movement if I have a choice, mostly because it is plenty often I am forced into poor leverage situations at work. There is no benefit to NOT applying solid mechanics where practical.
 
bluejeff said:
Where I get off the bus is when I hear statements that want to relate lifting to day-to-day activities, e.g. "our daily activities should mirror how we lift." As Watchnerd was saying, he used to hinge to lift the toilet seat. Nobody packs their shoulder to grab a plate out of the cabinet.
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North Coast Miller said:
People with shoulder pain.
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I recall Grey Cook once saying, "You shouldn't have to Hard Style to tie your shoes."

But I do. You won't find me bending down to pick up something without doing it with a neutral lumbar and a hip hinge. When I tie my shoes, it's a "breath behind the shield" thing for me, not a major Valsalva but nonetheless not a situation where I'll completely relax, either. I am, as some of us are in greater or lesser ways, damaged goods when it comes to my lower back. Deadlifting has absolutely helped it - heck, deadlifting saved me - and kettlebell swings help it, but I still use a lumbar cushion when I sit for any prolonged period of time.

My right shoulder is a bit like this, too - I have to clank it into place pretty often, even when putting dishes back into the kitchen cabinet. But my situation sure beats the alternative of not being able to do it at all, and like my lumbar, my right shoulder is something I misused for most of my adult life, so I go by the famous quote, "Do the best you can, where you are, with what you've got." (It goes something like that, didn't bother to look it up. Teddy Roosevelt, if memory serves ... )

@bluejeff, I'm with you - these aren't things people should try to do if they don't have to. But I definitely hip hinge when I lift the toilet seat. It's just become my movement pattern without ever trying to make it that.

-S-
 
North Coast Miller said:
To me, part of the adaptive response should be improved movement mechanics, greater proprioceptive awareness all the time. I almost never use haphazard movement if I have a choice, mostly because it is plenty often I am forced into poor leverage situations at work. There is no benefit to NOT applying solid mechanics where practical.
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Steve Freides said:
My right shoulder is a bit like this, too - I have to clank it into place pretty often, even when putting dishes back into the kitchen cabinet. But my situation sure beats the alternative of not being able to do it at all, and like my lumbar, my right shoulder is something I misused for most of my adult life, so I go by the famous quote, "Do the best you can, where you are, with what you've got."
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I also agree with both of the above. I guess to me, "solid mechanics" depends on your situation and the task at hand. A lot of the PTs I follow dislike using the word "dysfunction" because it implies something is "wrong/bad." Rather, they like to say that the compensations a body will make are its way of attempting to maintain function. So, to me, "proper mechanics" is partly relative. Maybe I'm repeating myself at this point, so I'll try not to belabor it too much.

There's a difference between safely, effectively, and effeciently organizing one's body to acheive a task, and thinking there is some idealized movement pattern that is the "right" way as opposed to a "wrong" way (especially when applied ubiquitously). The latter, I believe, is what the beginning of the thread was about.

A hip hinge serves a purpose. If one's back is in a state (injured/painful/etc) where hip hinging grants them pain-free movement, it is functional. If someone can bend over by allowing their spine to flex, and they have no issues from it, then I say they shouldn't be thinking that hip hinging is somehow superior.
 
bluejeff said:
There's a difference between safely, effectively, and effeciently organizing one's body to acheive a task, and thinking there is some idealized movement pattern that is the "right" way as opposed to a "wrong" way (especially when applied ubiquitously).
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I've heard some people use the expression "one true way", abbreviated OTW, to describe that kind of thinking.

-S-
 
watchnerd said:
The funny thing about OTW perspectives is that it can imply that the human body is a well-thought out design in the first place,
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Yes. There are well-ingrained neural/motor pathways that the brain defaults to; these are like movements you can do without thinking. Then there are pathways that are "less-trodden;" these are the ones you have to consciously focus on to perform well.

In either case, however, I think the lay person doesn't fully realize that the body and brain are figuring out movement on the spot. There is a complex interplay between sense input and motor output, and adjustments the nervous system has to make on the fly.
 
Steve Freides said:
I recall Grey Cook once saying, "You shouldn't have to Hard Style to tie your shoes."

But I do. You won't find me bending down to pick up something without doing it with a neutral lumbar and a hip hinge. When I tie my shoes, it's a "breath behind the shield" thing for me, not a major Valsalva but nonetheless not a situation where I'll completely relax, either. I am, as some of us are in greater or lesser ways, damaged goods when it comes to my lower back. Deadlifting has absolutely helped it - heck, deadlifting saved me - and kettlebell swings help it, but I still use a lumbar cushion when I sit for any prolonged period of time.

My right shoulder is a bit like this, too - I have to clank it into place pretty often, even when putting dishes back into the kitchen cabinet. But my situation sure beats the alternative of not being able to do it at all, and like my lumbar, my right shoulder is something I misused for most of my adult life, so I go by the famous quote, "Do the best you can, where you are, with what you've got." (It goes something like that, didn't bother to look it up. Teddy Roosevelt, if memory serves ... )

@bluejeff, I'm with you - these aren't things people should try to do if they don't have to. But I definitely hip hinge when I lift the toilet seat. It's just become my movement pattern without ever trying to make it that.

-S-
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Hi Steve, I am with you here in regards to how I treat my lower back. Hinge to lift the toilet seat, lumbar support in my car and desk chair, slight brace when lifting everyday items in front of me, etc.

In my late 20's, I did "abuse" my flexion quota a number of years ago with AMRAP sets of Deadlifts and Back Squats. My strength levels moved up very quickly with AMRAP sets until one day my back started hurting consistently and I cannot train like that anymore. I too have a lumbar support for sitting and long car rides still bring on that familiar poking pain.

It has been a few years of figuring out what hurts and what doesn't, reading a lot of Stuart McGill, experimenting with other lifts, and just learning to move well.

I imagine that I will be in a similar boat as my training evolves. I notice that I have a better tolerance for Front Squats, BB Rows, and Back Squats with a neutral spine with pristine technique. My goal is that training these movements hard will eventually carryover to my conventional deadlift (when I bring it back into my program).

Cheers!
 
StWrangler said:
Hi Steve, I am with you here in regards to how I treat my lower back. Hinge to lift the toilet seat, lumbar support in my car and desk chair, slight brace when lifting everyday items in front of me, etc.

In my late 20's, I did "abuse" my flexion quota a number of years ago with AMRAP sets of Deadlifts and Back Squats. My strength levels moved up very quickly with AMRAP sets until one day my back started hurting consistently and I cannot train like that anymore. I too have a lumbar support for sitting and long car rides still bring on that familiar poking pain.

It has been a few years of figuring out what hurts and what doesn't, reading a lot of Stuart McGill, experimenting with other lifts, and just learning to move well.

I imagine that I will be in a similar boat as my training evolves. I notice that I have a better tolerance for Front Squats, BB Rows, and Back Squats with a neutral spine with pristine technique. My goal is that training these movements hard will eventually carryover to my conventional deadlift (when I bring it back into my program).

Cheers!
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I'm curious about your age if that abuse happened in your late 20s and you're still dealing with it?
 
watchnerd said:
I'm curious about your age if that abuse happened in your late 20s and you're still dealing with it?
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Sorry for the late reply.

I am 32. My first big lifting injury was when I was 28 - I had a very successful run of Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 and it just caught up to me, was doing way too much volume on Squats and Deads and allowed my form to break. I started getting symptoms of some type of bulging disc (pain with forward flexion, unable to sit for long periods, little "catches" in my back if I moved the wrong way.)

I am actually dealing with a flare up right now, but for the most part, I have been able to train through this injury being smart about my heavy work and minimizing deadlift volume. I realized (now too late) that I actually don't need that much volume on my Deadlift and Squat to progress them (they both seem to move just fine with lots of Front Squats and Rows).

I would attribute it to a number of factors - lifting under fatigue and allowing form to break, not religiously taking deloads every 3-4 weeks (until I was forced to), my spine hygiene outside the gym, lack of hip and t-spine mobility, and a lack of core stability.

Interestingly enough, the past year, I have really dived into Stuart McGill's works and have been doing daily core stability work and I am just now feeling back squats in my legs and my torso feels like a "block" whereas before, it seemed more like I would only feel it in my lower back.

I anticipate that I will have to, at the very least, be very conscious of my lower back for the foreseeable future, but if I have the discipline, I can continue to get stronger and healthier into my late 30's and 40's.
 
StWrangler said:
Sorry for the late reply.

I am 32. My first big lifting injury was when I was 28 - I had a very successful run of Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 and it just caught up to me, was doing way too much volume on Squats and Deads and allowed my form to break. I started getting symptoms of some type of bulging disc (pain with forward flexion, unable to sit for long periods, little "catches" in my back if I moved the wrong way.)

I am actually dealing with a flare up right now, but for the most part, I have been able to train through this injury being smart about my heavy work and minimizing deadlift volume. I realized (now too late) that I actually don't need that much volume on my Deadlift and Squat to progress them (they both seem to move just fine with lots of Front Squats and Rows).

I would attribute it to a number of factors - lifting under fatigue and allowing form to break, not religiously taking deloads every 3-4 weeks (until I was forced to), my spine hygiene outside the gym, lack of hip and t-spine mobility, and a lack of core stability.

Interestingly enough, the past year, I have really dived into Stuart McGill's works and have been doing daily core stability work and I am just now feeling back squats in my legs and my torso feels like a "block" whereas before, it seemed more like I would only feel it in my lower back.

I anticipate that I will have to, at the very least, be very conscious of my lower back for the foreseeable future, but if I have the discipline, I can continue to get stronger and healthier into my late 30's and 40's.
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You’ll be fine as long as you listen to your body and do what you’re doing now (lots of core work, etc).

I’m 52 and still BSQ and FSQ 2 x a week, snatch pull and clean pull 2x a week.
 
watchnerd said:
You’ll be fine as long as you listen to your body and do what you’re doing now (lots of core work, etc).

I’m 52 and still BSQ and FSQ 2 x a week, snatch pull and clean pull 2x a week.
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This is great to hear! Thank you for the encouragement and that work volume is something to strive for. I trust that I have learned my lesson of being more patient with form, progression, and core work, and treating this is a marathon not a sprint.
 
@Boris Bachmann I've seen you mention seated good mornings in this thread and your dim view of them. Do you view them as a lumbar flexion exercise and dislike them for that reason? Or for other reasons?

I did them for the first time in my life using an empty bar.

I first did them with a neutral spine, which felt fine, but pretty -- I was getting more of a hamstring stretch than anything. I could get to 30-40 degrees above the bench.

Next thought of this thread and did them with lumbar flexion, I could get my face closer to the bench, like maybe 20 degrees. But man did they feel stupid -- it didn't hurt, it just felt kind of like a gentle self inflicted torso crushing.

I finally did them with a lumbar arch and a bit of APT, and that's when I felt my erectors light up.
 
FWIW, I felt I got more out of the seated good mornings than I get these days out of supermans.

So maybe it was a good progression, at least for me.
 
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