rickyw
Level 7 Valued Member
@the hansenator , that sounds exactly like Stuart McGill in a stem talk podcast that was posted here awhile ago.
In general, I think Stuart's literature is very good, though it's good to remember his specialty is low back disorders. And I do agree with him and that people really don't need to work on stretching their lumbar spines. You can safely mobilize the lumbar spine a couple of ways (the prone pressup and the cat camel are two of these and my patients get renditions of these) but to spend a lot of time cranking on your lumbar spine to loosen it up is probably not going to be a good thing. Usually if the lumbar spine is "tight" or painful it's because the hips shoulders and or thoracic spine are not loose enough so the lumbar spine moves extra to compensate (or gets injured by moving too much) and the surrounding musculature starts to guard or spasm. I'm speaking generally here, there are many reasons for low back pain.
In general, I think Stuart's literature is very good, though it's good to remember his specialty is low back disorders. And I do agree with him and that people really don't need to work on stretching their lumbar spines. You can safely mobilize the lumbar spine a couple of ways (the prone pressup and the cat camel are two of these and my patients get renditions of these) but to spend a lot of time cranking on your lumbar spine to loosen it up is probably not going to be a good thing. Usually if the lumbar spine is "tight" or painful it's because the hips shoulders and or thoracic spine are not loose enough so the lumbar spine moves extra to compensate (or gets injured by moving too much) and the surrounding musculature starts to guard or spasm. I'm speaking generally here, there are many reasons for low back pain.