Small Exercises to Reduce Back Pain | Jeff Cavaliere & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Introduction to Functional Longevity

00:00Let's just assume for a second that somebody listening to this is training their lower body twice a week. Mhm. They're doing compound exercises and some isolation exercises, but they're dealing with some back pain or they're not. I 20s, they're in their 20s or 30s or structurally they're blessed and they're not dealing with it.

00:19What are some additional things that we would call small things that make the big things possible for much longer and also make people stronger at the big things that people can do? Would you say uh

Reverse Hyperextension Benefits

00:33back hyperextensions? Would you say watch your video on medial uh glute medius training? What would be the exercise to insert and how many times per week to do it and when? That's a good question. So yeah, reverse hypers are an amazing exercise.

00:46Um, I like doing them because they're very easy to do anywhere. You don't have to have resistance on them. They make a great machine that actually provides resistance. Straps over your legs that you can lift additional weight on. But the challenge for most people, remember, they're chronically weak in these areas.

01:04So, even just the body weight lifting of their own legs is going to be a significant enough challenge to get overload. But you can literally do it on like your bed in the morning. You can get up. You lay enough of your torso on top of the bed so that you're not falling off the bed, but you can just have your legs hanging off your bed and your body up on top of the bed and do a reverse hyper.

01:22So, raising the heels, raising the heels so that they're parallel with the floor as level as you can get them. You know, again, the bed's a little a little soft. So, sometimes you kind of dip down as you're lifting your legs up, but it's it's it's sturdy enough that you can get to almost a parallel position to the floor.

01:36I like to make sure, we'll talk about this, but like you're moving, the muscles are doing the work and not momentum, right? So, you want to hold that contraction briefly at the top to convince yourself that you actually were able to perform the movement.

01:48So, you

Glute Weakness & Back Pain

01:50get up, hold it for for a second. And I think what's important on that, too, is people who don't have the strength in their glutes, cuz it really is a glute weakness issue, not necessarily a low back issue. it. A lot of times it's weakness in the glutes that's transferring the load to the low back that can't handle it.

02:06And people get the symptoms in the back, but it's the weakness somewhere else that's causing that. So, I like to focus first and foremost on the glutes, glute max, glute me, is to make sure that they're strong enough. And again, if you test even big- time athletes, we would test their rotational strength of their hips.

02:22Some of the strongest athletes, some of the biggest squatters, some of the best lungers, right? They're lunging over 200 pounds. they you put them in position, you try to bend their their uh their hip into internal or external rotation of their of their bent knee, they can't resist it at all.

02:39So they it just goes to show you that all the squatting, all the big lifts aren't enough to counteract the smaller muscles, right? There are different functions. A rotational muscle of the hip is not a sagittal plane muscle of the hip. It has a different function.

02:54So they all have to be strengthened. So along that along that line, we will do the the the reverse hyper as a good sagittal plane exercise focusing on the glute. When they get to the top and I tell you to contract it, squeeze so you know that's the glute that's squeezing and doing the work, not that you're arching at the low back, that you're using the muscles that are already overworked in the first place.

03:14So get that up there. Squeeze. Reinforce that it's the glute that did the work. Great exercise. The glute medius, like I said, the hip bump. Super easy exercise. You could do it anywhere against the wall. He can do anywhere

Exercises for Glute Medius

03:26against the wall. Any anything you can do like a butt bump. You you basically raise the leg that's closer to the wall like 90° outer one you're standing. It's almost like you're trying to slide that hip that's along the that's closer to the wall up the wall.

03:37So it's like Yeah. It's like a kind of like side booty bump to the wall but sliding it up. And and this is sometimes where you have to invest and this is the small things but you know they're also small investments. A little mini hip band. You know the little elastic bands.

03:50They're just loops. The little fit loop they're called. Put it around your heels. Lay on your belly. Bend your knees to 90°. And then just try to open your feet apart, right? Spread your feet apart. So now you're strengthening rotation of the hip.

04:05Or hold one steady. Let one leg, it's a little hard to show here, but let one leg come a little bit in front of the other and then try to cross it over the other one. So now you're getting external rotation of that hip. So you're working external rotation against resistance, internal rotation against resistance.

04:21Super easy things to do. You can you can attach a band around your around your ankle and then you can do lateral hip swings but with a component of rotating against the resistance of the band too. So I'm moving my leg out and rotating out at the same time.

04:36How do you do that? Just focus on your toe. If your toe is turning out, your hip is turning out. If your toe is turning in and your hip is turning in. So you don't have to focus so much on how do I move that. Just focus on what the foot is doing and you're turning.

04:49As long as the knee is going with the foot, right? You're not just spinning the foot. the knee and the foot go together. So, there's there's simple things and again, you might need a band or a mini band or something to get these smaller muscles more specifically, but it's $10, $15 for a band.

05:04It's well worth the investment if you can get rid of these long-term recurrent issues that keep come, you know, back and and causing agony every 2, three months as a reminder of what you're not doing. Once I realized that the glute medius was causing for me back spasm issues that were severe enough that it was immobilizing but then it was resolved by the information you provide in your videos.

05:27I started doing the um the hip slide up the wall movement. I still do that. the reverse hyper and then the one that you put in a video and again we'll put links to these that I found uh a little bit more uh of a setup but seems really useful is where you take some sort of rope or dog leash and you put it around your waist and then you actually have a weight between your your legs hanging a couple inches off the floor and then the goal is to

Functional Stability Walking Drills

05:56walk it makes you kind of have to kind of monster walk or and the idea is to not let the weight swing and hit your your feet. Now, I know that sounds really awkward, but it really works and I know it works uh for a number of reasons. And by the way, all this strengthened other lifts for me dramatically.

06:13I was kind of at a sticking point with a number of of lower body lifts and upper body lifts. And it really seems like it helped create a real stability in the lower back glute area. What is that dog leash thing doing? Uh it's very simple, right?

06:26Just tie a weight between your legs and then you're trying to walk but not let it swing. what why does that work? Anytime you could take these smaller exercises and bring them a little closer to actual function, I think it's better. It's better carryover.

06:39So, if you're talking about actually being on your feet and walking, that's a step towards function. That's that's you're going to be more useful, I think. Um, but what you're doing is, as I mentioned before, every time you pick up a foot off the ground, you're in single leg stance.

06:53So when you're in single leg stance, if you're not contracting the glute medius on the side that you're standing on, your pelvis is going to drop. You're going to drop in the side because you're you're not balanced anymore. You're going to drop towards the up leg.

07:05You may not drop if you're consciously trying to stay level because you're firing the glute medius. But for someone that has a weak glute, you just have them stand on that one leg and you're going to see that pelvis drop. So when you're doing this test and you're adding the weight to the equation here, the weight is really to create a pendulum effect, right?

07:25Because when you start to move anything, that weight's going to want to go in an exaggerated way. So what what we're trying to reinforce is, okay, can you do this and take these slow steps in these single alternating single leg stance and prevent that that weight from shifting so much, i.e.

07:44because you're dropping too much that it would hit or bang into the other leg. So, you have to be able to walk slowly through single leg stance and not allow enough of a drop by having good contraction and control of the glute medius so that it would minimize the the the weight itself.

08:00It would quiet the motion of the weight itself. So, you're reinforcing how hard can I keep this thing engaged as I walk. And you know, if you could do this, the faster you could move yourself and still have minimal displacement of the weight would be a good indicator that wow, you're really starting to get good control and strength in those in that glute medius.

08:20Another thing I like to do is um we call it a suitcase lunge, right? So you do a a lunge where you offset the weight on one side. So you carry it in the if I'm

Suitcase Lunges for Pelvic Control

08:32going to lunge forward, I put it on the opposite leg, right? Hold on the opposite side. What that's going to theoretically do is obviously when I lunge forward, I'm going to want to fall to the side of the weight. Picture having even like a 50 lb weight or a 60 lb weight in your hand.

08:45It's going to want to go that direction. In this lunge position, if I can straighten my self out and keep my torso rigidly in place the whole time, then I can really strengthen that glute medius on the opposite side. And what's cool about that is it's also done on a in conjunction with a sagittal plane lunge.

09:03So now I'm starting to play in train in multiple dimensions and planes at one time. So a lunge in this direction, suitcase carrier, offset only one dumbbell, not on the other side. Obviously, you're going to get that desire for the body to fall towards the side of the offset weight.

09:17And again, that starts to shift the pelvis up. The only thing will keep it down is by keeping the hip in, abducted, and level. And that pelvis stays level. So we'll do that with a lot of our athletes and work up to some pretty heavy weights there, too.

09:31And again, it is a kill two birds with one stone type exercise because you still get the benefits of the lunge, which I I love as an exercise. So, let's say somebody is going to do some hip slide up the wall or andor reverse hypers if they're lucky enough to have a gym with a reverse hyper machine or or even a just a high bench or hyperextension machine, right?

09:51Classic hyper extensions, you just go face inward. Yeah. the upper body moves and um for classic hyper uh heels which I like too by the way like that's more direct low back strengthening which is always good like we can always strengthen our low backs that those muscles need to be strengthened but again I I would say more often the time times the source of the low back pain is coming from the muscles but beneath them that are weak chronically weak like the glutes okay so reverse hypers the hip sliding up the wall approach maybe the dog leash with weight between um legs.

10:27Doesn't have to be a dog leash, folks, but you get the idea. To try and minimize the hip sway. Should those be done at the end of a lower body workout when the lower back and glutes are partially fatigued or very fatigued or done separately at a time when they're really fresh.

10:42Two

Optimal Frequency & Timing

10:43times I think I think you could do them on a dedicated day at a dedicated time. So, I I approach my ab training as ab training and I always keep it separate. I just like to focus on I'm going to do five to 10 minutes of core strengthening right now here and now separate from my workout because I don't want it to be an afterthought.

11:01I think it should be it's a it's a key component of what I do to keep a strong core. So I want to focus it and I don't want to add it to the end of my workout when I'm already mentally checked out. Right? So I do that. I think when you start to have these issues that require special programming, right?

11:20then you should own that special programming because it's yours. It's what you need specifically. Others might need things for their shoulders or for the rotator cuff. But like whatever special programming is, do it as a small routine on its own day at its own time.

11:32Or even it could be on a workout day, but a separate time that you just go through as a routine, 5 minutes to 7 minutes three times a week or so. That's it. If you want to put it on a training day, it's actually not a bad idea to put these smaller muscle exercises or smaller focused exercises after your bigger training cuz a you're not going to compromise your big training and the goals that you have for for that.

11:55But you also are pre- fatiguing some of those bigger muscles that are going to want to dominate these small movements anyway. The compensations that you're going to see on these small movements are always going to be the big muscles trying to kick in and do what they've always done, which is take over.

12:08And you're trying to get them to not. So, if you can pre- fatigue them a little bit prior to doing these small exercises, you're actually setting the smaller muscles up for more success. [music] [music]