Month: June 2025

Are deadlifts good to do if you have a sore back?

Deadlifts are a fantastic exercise, a functional compound exercise that strengthens the lower back, hips, hamstrings and deep inner trunk muscles.

Deadlifts target the very muscles that weaken in back pain sufferers over a period of time.

But do we recommend them if you have a sore back?

The answer is NO – we do not.

The thought of bending over with a sore back, let alone bending over to pick up the equivalent of your own body weight is the last thing on earth people suffering from back pain feel like doing.

The reason you have your back pain, is because the muscles integral to supporting your body weight and your back are letting you down. They are extremely weak leaving you to feel very vulnerable as soon as you lean forward of your midline.

Most back pain sufferers when we ask them to squat down. Will squat down with their knees forward, their backs dead straight in a fixed vertical position whilst balancing on their toes.

Many so called strength and conditioning experts recommend deadlifts for back pain sufferers because they target the exact areas that are weak in the body resulting in back pain.

The problem with this approach is that the vast majority of back pain sufferers do not have the balance and stability to bend forward and correctly position themselves to carry out a deadlift.

Similar to the photo shown above of the back pain sufferer, the deadlift start and end position will have their body weight forward of their midline which will place all the load back onto the lower back. Not only is this poor technique, it will create pain for most (not all) back pain sufferers.

Of the back pain sufferers who can carry out a deadlift in this fashion without creating back pain, it defeats the purpose of doing a dead lifts as due to the poor technique the muscles that a deadlift should target are not engaging due to the distribution of weight all being forward of the midline.

So in short, deadlifts are a brilliant exercise if carried out correctly.

In all my time seeing chronic back pain sufferers, I have seen only a small handful of people who could carry out a deadlift with correct technique at the time they presented with pain.

The very muscles that are weak and causing back pain are the very muscles that are integral to supporting you through a perfect deadlift.

My advice is to focus on strengthening these muscles, improve your pelvic stability and balance. Then as your back pain symptoms settle, and you start to feel confident, add deadlifts to your regime. Start with small weights and focus on balance and correct technique. As your balance and technique improve, increase the resistance building up to your body weight over a period of time.

Remember – if you are doing a deadlift and it hurts your back – You are doing it wrong.

A correct deadlift will provide you with relief and a feeling of strength through your back and deep into your trunk.

With perfect technique and respect for this quality exercise – when the timing is right the deadlift will become your best friend. It will leave you feeling strong, and completely avoiding back pain as long as you do them.

Please view our video for further clarity.

How does emotional stress impact my back pain?

Emotional stress plays a very clear, however very complicated role in back pain, especially lower back pain.

For the purpose of this brief article we will try to provide a simple outline of how emotions (most commonly associated with the brain) can affect your body. I make note of one of my favourite books on the mind/ body connection and the role emotions can play on the fascia (connective tissue of the body).  

Fascia or commonly referred to as connective tissue is integral to providing support and stability to our posture.

When we are physically challenged (fight or flight) our posture unconsciously braces to protect from physical danger. Our shoulders round forward to protect our chest and the vital organs, our head lowers in a braced position in behind our shoulder, our hips internally rotate to protect our reproductive organs, as we tense through our stomachs to prevent damage to the organs within our peritoneal cavity.

Whilst the above protective posture is really clear to see when we are physically challenged, how about how we look when we are emotionally challenged?

Let’s look at the extreme…. The posture of a broken man or women.

Head drops down, eyes pointing to the pavement. Shoulders drop down in state of despair, knees buckle with no spring in the step, with the hips rotated inwards, all visual signs of someone who is just in an emotional slump.

Whilst the above two examples are extremes of how the body protects and braces. It does give a very clear example of how your body can be affected by the state of your mind.

The human body is not designed to handle constant intermittent emotional stress. One of the side effects of emotional stress is physical tension that builds up and stays tight. If you suffer from emotional stress, having tension in these areas will be very familiar to you.

1. Neck and shoulder tension – (shoulder round forward to protect, causing the neck and shoulder muscles and facia to restrict)
2. Chest tension and difficulty breathing deeply – chest restricted from rounded shoulders, diagram tension that affects lungs filling with air.
3. Stomach tension – shoulder and hips rounded forward causes the deep muscles of the trunk to shorten and contract.
4. Lower back – due to the rounding forward of the hips, shoulders and the tension present deep in the stomach, diaphragm the fascia of lower back is under constant tension.   

Some people have constant back pain due to their emotional state. Other people’s back pain only flares up when their emotional state boils over.

In short, whilst we don’t always noticeably crawl up into a ball when we have emotional stress we are struggling to cope with, we do have very noticeable tension present that causes us pain, back pain being one such area.

In essence your body is going into a protective mode whether you are aware of it or not, to brace and protect you from the emotional challenges you are faced with.

There are effective techniques to manage our emotional stress; a few that I recommend are:

• Sedeno method
• Demartini method
• The power of now.

On a more physical level you can help prevent tension building to the point where you are in days of pain, by strengthening your postural muscles.

If you feel strongly that your back pain is purely brought on by your emotional state and you want to understand the body/ mind connection to place together all the dots, I strongly recommend you read the book “Molecules of Emotions” by Candice Pert.

I will forewarn you.. If this subject is of interest to you, then you will not be able to put this powerful, thought provoking book down.

Here is a brief description of the book:

Why do we feel the way we feel? How do our thoughts and emotions affect our health? Are our bodies and minds distinct from each other or do they function together as part of an interconnected system? …

Candice Pert is the absolute authority on the mind/ body connection. A hard core scientist, whose life journey dove her deep into both the esoteric and science worlds.  With the rare ability to quantify eastern medicine views with hard western science, some of her discoveries were simply remarkable.

Stand up desk vs seated – Back Pain

The latest trend in stand up desks in preference to long hours seated at a desk has it merits.

Being the solution to ending back pain for office bound workers is definitely not one of them.

There are a lot of health benefits in standing for prolonged period as opposed to sitting:

• Increased circulation (blood vessels are less restricted when standing)
• Increased respiration (airways and lungs are more open when standing)  
• Increased lymphatic circulation  
• Digestion more functional than when seated for long periods.
• Postural muscles working to support your standing position
• Extra calories expired due to major muscles groups supporting your standing position.
• The ability to adjust and distribute weight across both sides of the body.

Regardless of whether you suffer from back pain or otherwise, we strongly recommend that you vary your position throughout the day. Periods of time seated, standing and moving around the office.

If you suffer from back pain and looking to a stand up desk as the solution, unfortunately you will be met with the following concerns.

• The cause of your back pain is postural weakness
• Standing for long periods asks more of your already weakened postural muscles than sitting does.  
• The muscles that compensate and carry extra load for your weak posture will become further fatigued from long periods standing. In turn causing you more pain.

Therefore in the fight against back pain, there is no right or wrong answer as to whether you are best to sit or stand for long periods any position maintained for long periods of time with a sore back, with weakened postural muscles is going to result in a painful symptomatic response.

The most likely reason for your back pain and the postural weaknesses that created it was from being fixed in the same position for long periods on end. The muscles that should support you when you stand are weak and they need to be addressed in your lasting solution to back pain.

You need to carry out exercises to address your postural imbalances. The major muscles that support your weight when you sit, stand and walk are muscles posterior of your midline. The erector spinae, gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductor muscles should be your focus.

Restore strength, symmetry and balance to your body and continue a regime to maintain it and you will find that regardless of whether you sit or stand for long periods, your back will be as strong as on ox.   

At this point, you will find great benefit incorporating intermittent periods of time at your standing desk.

For more information and answers to chronic back pain, please refer to articles on our site.

Are squats good to do if you have a sore back?

Squats are a brilliant exercise that target all the major muscles groups of the body.

However there is a lot of conjecture of whether someone suffering from lower back pain should make squats a part of their training regime.

Some practitioners and fitness experts advise to avoid squats if you are suffering from a sore back, whilst others recommend to do squats as a remedy to fix your sore back.

There are many different types of back pain, both different causes and different sources of the symptoms/ pain that a back sufferer experiences.

In this articles we will take a closer look at the fors and against doing squats, then draw relevance to the cause and symptoms of back pain and how varying conditions respond better or worse after doing squats.

The argument for doing squats to fix your sore back stems from the belief that all back pain is created due to muscular imbalances in the body. Given squats are the most dynamic functional compound exercise, that targets all your major postural muscles, carrying them out is believed to target the underlying cause of your back pain.

The argument against doings squats stems from the fact that your body is too weak to handle a dynamic functional compound exercise, therefore the excess load will be placed on your back potentially creating further damage and pain.

So one thing that the two different arguments agree on is that the cause of the back pain complaint stems from muscular weakness.

From our perspective, the underlying postural weakness can result in different symptoms of lower back pain. Due to the lack of support, the back is placed under excess load, which leads to restriction and pain in the structures of the lower back; the muscles, joints, ligaments.

What adds to the confusion is that some back pain sufferers get fantastic relief from doing squats, whilst others are left with a painful ache or spasm that can last for days. Further to this, many back sufferers can feel great most of the time doing squats, however every now and then they get a severe flare up after carrying out squats for no explained reason.   

So if you are doing squats, and they free your back up making you feel better and stronger. Our advice is to keep doing them. This typically suggests that you have postural weaknesses present that cause you back pain, however not to the extent that you can not carry out a functional compound exercise. Get a trained therapist or instructor to take an eye over your technique, gradually build strength over time and strengthen your postural imbalances.

If you are doing squats and every now and then you flare up for no known reason, then you are most likely not posturally strong enough to consistently carry out squats. Back flare ups can occur due to you being fatigued at the time of doing squats, meaning on top of the already weakened postural muscles, you have further lack of support due to the fatigue.

If you have been doing squats for a while and you are still getting occasional flare ups, this would suggest that your technique needs altering as you are not successfully targeting the weakened postural muscles.

Our advice is to seek professional advice on what exercises you can do to assist your squatting technique, so you can start to overcome the underlying postural weakness.

If you cannot squat at all without increased pain, then your postural weakness is to the point where you cannot support the weight of your body. All the load is placed upon the lower back and its structures. If you fall into this category your path to leading a healthy pain free lifestyle is much more difficult, definitely not impossible, just more difficult than those who are still strong enough to build strength with functional compound exercises such as squats.

For chronic back sufferers who cannot squat, please click on one of the relevant articles that will inform you on what needs to be done to eradicate your back pain and strengthen your body so it does not return.

Should you need to stretch?

In an ideal world NO, You should not need to stretch – unless you participate in an activity that you hold no recent muscular conditioning for.

The most common reason people find themselves so reliant on stretching is due to holding muscular imbalances. These muscular imbalances cause certain muscle groups to carry the majority of the load (either physically activity or just daily movement), whilst other muscle groups are not able to support due to the biomechanical change caused from the imbalances.  

A common example is the runner who gets extremely tight calfs, quads and hip flexors. Weak gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductor muscles allow the pelvis to anteriorly tilt forward which in turn shortens the hips flexors and quad muscles. As the person runs with all their weight forward of their midline, their calf muscles are having to work harder and harder to maintain the body in an upward position, hence resulting in excessively tight calfs, quads and hip flexors at the end of the run.

The runner diligently stretches, applies heat, foam rollers each night in an attempt to loosen off the tension so they can get out and run again the next day. Unfortunately this becomes a daily ritual purely because the muscular imbalances are never addressed.

A targeted exercise regime that focuses on eradicating tension to the quads, hip flexors, whilst strengthening the gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductor muscles over time would eradicate the postural imbalances that lead to the continuous need to stretch.

A strong and balanced posture maintains good pelvic stability when you run, allowing the load and impact to distribute evenly through all the muscles of the body, most importantly to the posterior muscles that are designed to assist when running.

With the correct muscles carrying the load, the previously overloaded muscles all of a sudden feel so much less fatigued and tight after every run. Initially the correct muscles will be tight and fatigued as the are yet to be conditioned due to the extended period of not doing their part.

Once the runner builds conditioning with their perfectly symmetrical posture the desire or need to stretch becomes redundant.

The very same thing applies to the person who suffers from lower back pain. They go home each night and stretch, apply heat and foam roll just to loosen up their tight back.

No different to the runner, if the back suffer addresses the underlying cause and strengthens their postural muscular imbalances, they will eradicate their back pain and eliminate the need to stretch out their back each night after work.

In summary, if you maintain perfect postural symmetry, then all of your muscles are working at their optimal length.  The correct major muscles of the hips and trunk are carrying the load and impact of all your human movement.  To eradicate pain and the need for unnecessary hours spent stretching each week focus on addressing the underlying imbalances present in your body.

What if there was a unique way to squat that could fix your back?

There are many different ways to squat, let’s look at the most common:

1. Bodybuilding squat: shallow squats with knees forward of the midline. Why? Because this particular technique loads up the quadriceps muscles. Perfect for the bodybuilder who wants big, conditioned quadriceps muscles, especially if he or she has an upcoming competition.
2. Powerlifting squats: deep squats, knees slightly forward of the midline. Why?  Powerlifters or olympic lifters have one chief aim, to lift as much as they possibly can either up and over their head (clean and jerk), up onto their chest (clean), or up off the ground with straight hanging arms (deadlift). Powerlifters squat in a sports specific functional manner that incorporates all the leg, hip, trunk and arm muscles to assist them in their chief training aim.  
3. Elite Sprinters Squats: Deep squats, knees not forward of midline, torso more horizontal than a traditional squat. Why? Sprinters are all about power to weight ratios. The major posterior muscles generate all the power that propels sprinters across the track. Ideally a sprinter wants massive gluteal and hamstrings muscles, and extremely lean anterior and upper body muscles.  

If you have been to a gym, and have been shown how to squat, you most likely were shown how to squat like a bodybuilder. Why? Who were gyms created for, who became the first gym instructors??.. You guessed it, Bodybuilders!! There is nothing wrong with this, nor the history of how gyms came about, however what it means is that you need to be 100% clear on what your core objective is with your training, notably your weight training and how you squat.

If you intend on being a bodybuilder or you are a young male teenager who like most his own age has a strong innate desire to pile on a mass of lean muscles, then we recommend following the crowd.

If you do not, then you need a specific weight training regime tailored to your personal needs. Squats are the most functional and rapid way to get results, however they are tough and hard to master. If you just go to your gym and ask your local instructor, then you most likely are going to be doing squats in a way more suited to bodybuilding that what you really want to achieve.

So if you want to be a:

• Bodybuilder, squat like a bodybuilder
• If you want to be a powerlifter, squat like a powerlifter

However if you want to:  

• Squat to fix your back
• Squat to improve your posture
• Squat to improve you top end speed, vertical leap and power for sport
• Squat to have a tight/ toned inner thighs, rock hard abs and buttocks (a.k.a look like a sprinter. 

Then it is pretty clear that you should buck the trend of the crowd and squat like a sprinter.

Be warned:

– You are in for some rapid and phenomenal results that will blow you and your friends and family away.

– Expect lots of funny looks from other gym goers as they wonder why you are squatting with a funny unorthodox technique.

– Expect the people who initially give you funny looks to start copying you when quickly notice your amazing improvements:).

Get to the gym, fix your back, improve your posture and enjoy your rock hard inner thighs, abs and buttocks.

How can sprint training fix my poor posture?

Picture the posture and physique of a sprinter vs a long distance marathon runner.

In order to propel yourself across the running track, you need to generate power from your major postural muscles. The posterior muscles of the body, and the deep trunk muscles are what make you run fast. So the very act of sprinting, or participating in a training regime designed to make you faster by regularly spriting is one of the most functional and effective ways to improve your posture.

Good Posture is governed by a solid and strong base. Think of the pelvis as your centre of gravity, and what should be your solid base. If the pelvis in not in its correct and neutral position due to muscular imbalances, then your lower limb biomechanics will be affected, the natural curves of the spine compromised along with your upper body strength and balance.

The vast majority of people who live in the western world, stuck at desks or carrying out tasks that keep them in a fixed position working forward of their midline for hours on end each and every day. This lifestyle causes imbalances, the anterior muscles of the body become tight and restricted (shortened), whilst the posterior muscles of the body become underused and weakened (lengthened). This creates what is called an anterior pelvic tilt, with the shortened anterior muscles pulling the front of the pelvis downwards, with the posterior muscles providing no stability or support due to being weak and lengthened.      

In order to obtain a good posture, you need to start with the base (the pelvis). The pelvis needs to be in a strong and stable position in order for the lower limbs, the spine and the upper body to function optimally.

Sprint training rectifies and offsets the effects of our modern sedentary lifestyles.

The very act of attempting to sprint faster and faster each session:  

• Strengthens the muscle that support pelvic stability
• Strengthens the deep muscles of the trunk (core)
• Strengthens the posterior muscles of the body; hamstrings, gluteus maximus, adductors

The areas you will notice improvement and change:

• Your gluteus muscles will become strong and toned
• Your inner thigh muscles will become strong and toned
• You will have stronger and more toned abdominal muscles  
• You will actually become leaner in the quadriceps muscles (providing you are not overtraining at other activities in the gym)
• You will actually become leaner in the upper body muscles (providing you are not overtraining at other activities in the gym)

Other health benefits gained from sprint training:

• Increased lean muscle mass
• Increased basal metabolic rate (meaning you will burn more fat during rest)
• Increased blood circulation
• Improved digestion/ elimination of waste.

In conclusion, sprinters look like pictures of health. You don’t need to hit the gym four hours a day to reap the benefits of a sprinter’s health and physique. You just need to sprint, 1-2 x p/w week is more than enough.

For more information on how to fix your posture and your back pain through sprint training, please read relevant articles on our site.

How do tight hip flexors play a role in back pain?

The link between tight or shortened hip flexor muscles and back pain is often misunderstood or completely overlooked.

It is important to understand that the source of back pain is almost always coming from the structures of the lower back. However the underlying cause, especially in chronic back pain sufferers is almost always due to other areas of the body being tight and being weak which compromises the lower back and the way that chronic sufferer uses their back.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the sources of back pain:

• Tightened, restricted lower back muscles
• Restricted joints such as facet joints and sacroiliac joints.
• Intervertebral disc derived Inflammation
• Solidified connective tissue

As you will note, all of the sources listed above are structures in the lower back region which makes complete sense as there is a direct link between the source of the pain and the area where the patient feels the pain. As mentioned above, the source of back pain and the underlying cause are two very different things, and this is where it becomes complicated for people to understand.  

Now let’s take a closer look at the underlying cause of chronic back pain and how the hip flexors play a major role in it:

• Weak posterior muscles; gluteus maximus, hamstrings, adductors
• Tight anterior muscles; quadriceps, hips flexor, iliopsoas

Weakened posterior muscles that are supposed to support us in an upright position, cause us to compensate by placing more of our body weight forward of our midline. What this does is overload our anterior muscles, causing them to become more dominate, tight and restricted.

The hips flexors are at the front of the hip, crossing over the hip joint, originating on the spine and inserting onto the femur (upper leg bone). With weakened posterior muscles, the hip flexor muscles take most of the person’s body weight when standing, walking, let alone during physical activity. As a result the hip flexor muscle group becomes shorter which combined with having weakened (lengthened) posterior muscles creates a downward force on the entire pelvis.

This combination between weak posterior muscles and tight anterior muscles creates what is referred to as an anterior pelvic tilt. With the pelvis tilting down or forward, the curves of the spine must compensate in order to maintain a level eyeline.

This creates an excessive lordotic lumbar curve which in turn compromises the structures of the lower back; lower back muscles, joints, discs, connective tissues.

Whilst it is important to note that the source of pain comes from the lower back, it is imperative to understand that the true underlying cause of lower back pain comes from postural imbalances due to lack of muscular symmetry.  The hip flexor muscles are one of the chief culprits that pull the pelvis in a position that compromises the lower back structures, in turn causing tension and restriction that results in pain.

Why avoiding leg exercises at the gym will lead you to lower back complaints?

This should be so self explanatory, that it should need not to be covered. However for the majority of gym going males, the drive for a strong upper body physique almost equals the lack of desire to tough it out on the lower body exercises.

To allay concerns that this article has a sexist tone in that it is directed to males – we only need to remind you of the masculine looking male walking on the beach in tracksuit pants. Great upper body physique out on show, with the tracksuit pants hiding the chicken legs.  Women tend to hold more focus on how their legs look and are a lot more vigilant in training both their upper and lower body.

Lets face it squats are tough, as are dead lifts. They are full compound exercises that work the major muscle groups of the body. Body builders are obsessed with them, as they are well aware of the knock on benefits to all areas of the body that come with mastering these lower body exercises. The ametuer gym goer is typically short of time, resulting in the lower part of the body being neglected.

Neglecting the lower body, whilst increasing both muscle size and strength does not only create an ascetical imbalance, it creates a major postural imbalance that often leads to lower back complaints.  If you think of the major leg and hip muscles as the base or foundation that supports the upper body, then it only makes sense that if the upper body is becoming heavier and producing more powerful movements, then the base/ foundation needs to be stronger.

The biomechanical side effects of having a stronger and heavier upper body, with a weakened under trained mid region and lower body:

• Weakened major postural such as gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductors fail to support the weight of the upper body.
• The body compensates with an anterior pelvic tilt due to instability
• The anterior pelvic tilt results in the majority of the person’s body weight placed on the muscles forward on the midline.
• The anterior muscles such as the hip flexors and deep internal rotators of the hips become overloaded and shortened.
• Weak posterior muscles, tight anterior muscles and an anterior pelvic tilt results causes the lumbar spine to excessively curve (hyperlordotic).
• A hyperlordotic curve compromises the joints, muscles, intervertebral discs and the fascia of the lower back.
• Postural weaknesses and imbalances result in the lower back not being supported one the person is in an upright position and moving.
• The lack of support for the back and the compromised structures due to hyperlordosis eventually result in an injury that can be long lasting.  

So the message it quite clear, if you want to avoid back pain, train your body. Sure lower body exercises can be tough, and can be time consuming when lifting heavy. However you will be thankful in the long run. We have added some tips below, to try ensure you get the best results with the minimum amount of time and effort spent 🙂

Tips to incorporating lower body exercises into your regime:

1. Leverage your time, forget isolation exercises, functional compound movements such as  squats and deadlifts are all you need to do.
2. Do the hard yards early, then maintain. Build up to at least your own body weight.
3. Work in the power range: maximal output, max reps of 5, 3-4 sets. And here’s the big pay off – providing you’re training with intensity, 1 session per week of power training is more than adequate.  
4. Maintain with a weight you are comfortable with (at or above your own body weight). This will avoid longer rest periods between sets, and obviously save you busting your guts each and every leg session.

Exercises where you consciously activate your glute muscles is a futile exercise!

Exercises where you consciously activate your glute muscles is a futile exercise!

The major glute muscles, the gluteus maximus’ primary role is to support us in an upright position when standing and when walking.

If the pelvis is maintained in a neutral position then the gluteus maximus muscle will automatically function and naturally activate under load.

However if the pelvis is not in a neutral position, instead in an anteriorly tilted position, then the gluteus maximus muscle is no longer in a biomechanical position to carry out its natural role.

For the person with an anterior pelvic tilt, the majority of their body weight is distributed forward of their midline. The anterior muscles of the body, the hip flexor group predominantly compensate and take on much of the load.

This compensatory position becomes perpetuating – the anterior muscles become more dominate, overloaded, short and contracted which creates a further downward pressure on an already anteriorly tilted pelvis. This further negates the ability for the posterior muscles, gluteus maximus, hamstrings and adductor muscles from carrying out their role causing them to quickly atrophy (reduce in size and strength) due to the lack of stimulus.

With tight, shortened anterior muscles creating a downward force on the pelvis and weakened,, elongated posterior muscles not able to support the pelvis in a neutral position the compensatory patterns is set in.

No amount of consciously activating, squeezing, trying to feel your glute muscles will override gravity. If all of your body weight is forward of your midline, then how on earth will squeezing your glute muscles or focusing on activating them correct this? Yet this is the approach taken by many healthcare practitioners and fitness trainers.

It is a futile approach that holds absolutely no lasting effect. As soon as you complete the activation exercises then stand up – guess what, all your weight is back on your anterior muscles and the very muscles you were activating are still not in a position to carry out its correct function. You could literally do this all day for a hundred years and it would still not have any relevant or notable impact on its so called chief aim – to get the glutes to activate during everyday activity.

A more practical approach is to focus on exercises or movement patterns that elongate (stretch) the tight, dominate anterior muscles whilst simultaneously strengthening the weak posterior muscles (the gluteus maximus being one of those).   

The short term benefit will be increased strength and growth to the gluteus maximus, however more importantly over time the compensatory position will be eradicated. Providing the right amount of resistance is added over time with sound technique, the pelvis will return to its neutral position. With a neutral pelvis the gluteus maximus muscle will be back in the perfect position to work all day every day to support the weight of your body when upright.