Jennifer DiDonato: Hello! Welcome to another wonderful episode of MadeFitTV. I'm your host Jennifer DiDonato and this is episode number 35. MadeFitTV is everyone's source for health and fitness information and entertainment, just in case you didn't know.
Today's episode is a very, very important topic that I want to talk about, because I have been getting, over the past few months, email after email about back problems, and one in particular that kind of prompted me to do this episode, because I have been wanting so much for a long time now but Dreg Valentine also known as Adam, he is from Louisville Kentucky, he emailed me and said, he doesn't have a gym membership, right now times are tough just with the economy and everything, everyone feels it. And he has got a lot of back problem, got some back issues. He is not sure how to strengthen his back.
So I wanted to develop this episode to back pain prevention. That is what today is about. And I just want to put it out there right now. I'm not a doctor, and even if I were I cannot diagnose any back issues or give you any specific suggestions as to isolated problems with back, because there are so many different types of back problems ranging from cervical, thoracic to lumbar region. You have bulging disc, you have sciatic nerve issue or so many different -- degenerative disc. So there are lot of different issues here and a lot it is related to other things that you maybe doing in your day to day life.
So just want to tell you that please consult your doctor if you have any specific and serious problems with your back. But today is just about back pain prevention, the simple things you can do everyday to make sure that you're keeping your back nice and strong and also preventing any injuries or any pain.
Now big contributors to back pain and we can put this up along the side Chris, for the notes, so people know is that the causes for back pain and injuries, some of it is genetics, sometimes they are just predisposed, maybe a little bit Scoliosis, another is misuse. If you haven't been in the gym in a while and you lift up a heavy weight and you're lifting it improperly, you're going to throw your back out. And also, overuse as well, if you are doing too many repetitive movements over and over again, wear and tear on the back, and then also of course a sedentary lifestyle, sitting at a computer, I know lot of us do it, me Twitter. So we want to make sure that you're not injuring yourself. Some of us are sitting at computers for ten hours a day, so that's doing damage to your back possibly, so you want to address that.
Now, back injuries like I said, they involve the bones because of any Scoliosis. They also involve muscles, nerves, joints. That's why there's a plethora of different injuries that I can't just address all in one question and in one answer. So we're going to touch on some things right now.
Now, it involves flexibility, I'm going to start first, flexibility is really important in maintaining a straight back, and also preventing injury. So flexibility, you can put this up along the side, that's the number one thing we want to work on. I'm going to show you some stuff.
First of all, I am going to take a stability ball and this is called, and you can even do this at your desk at work. This is called a lower back chair stretch with a pull. So I'm just going to sit on the stability ball, so just going to sit upright, back, nice and straight, bring your legs about 90 degrees out. I want your feet to be parallel to each other and about hip width apart and you're just going to come down, bring your head to your legs and clasp your hands underneath and round your back and then I want you to pull up.
Now, what this pulling up is doing is that this is also stretching the upper back. So you're stretching the lower back by rounding and now you're stretching your upper back by pulling and create some resistance. So that's just loosening up the tight muscles, especially, if you have been sitting at your desk for a really long time and that just gets things back into alignment a little bit more, so you're not prone to injury.
Another flexibility movement I'm going to show you that's really, really important also because it involves the hips. The hips -- if anything is out of alignment or tight it's going to force maybe other body parts out of alignment as well, because you maybe over-compensating. So if you have tight hips, it may cause you to walk with maybe a slight gimp, you may not even realize it, and then it may tightening up the stuff in the back and it's going to the shoulders, everything is related. So that's why we want to address it.
So with flexibility, this next one is going to be a twisting hip stretch. So, I'm going to have you lay on the ground, go on pop-up those notes too. I'm going to have you lay on your back, let me just remove by my mic pack right here. Okay. Arms at your sides and I want you to bring one leg up, we start with our right and I want you to twist off this side. But when you're twisting, I want you to try and hold your right hip down as your right leg is going this way, I want you to try and hold that down and just twist and just hold that, breathe normally. You're going to hold this for about may be 20 or 30 seconds and then we're going to switch. And this really loosens up, well I can feel that my left hip is a lot tighter than my right but you can feel it through the hamstring, the hip adductors, the piriformis, the glutes, all the way up to the lower back. You're stretching that up. So this loosens it up a little bit and also help loosens up our hips, which is a big contributor to a lot of people for some minor back pain.
Now, we addressed flexibility, the other facet that we need to address with low back pain is stability, stabilization and balance. We're going to go back to the fit ball. So that's the number two thing, we've got flexibility number one, stabilization and balance is number two.
So I'm going to have you grab your fit ball and we are just going to have you take a seat. Okay, so you're sitting on the stability ball, I want you to stand up nice and tight, nice and straight, hands on your hips and you want your feet to be parallel to each other, toes pointing forward and you are just kind of alternate lifting your legs. Now, I know it kind of looks a little bit simple, but when you lift one leg, it's going to force you to go off to the sides. So what you want to do is keep your center, because what this is doing is it is strengthening your core, not just the front, but also the lower back. And you want to make sure you're keeping your abs in, you chest up, and make sure you're keeping your back nice and straight. So that's a good stabilization and balance exercise.
Now, the number three thing that's very important to low back pain prevention is strength and functionality. Functionality, just the way our body is working and different body parts working together, and working properly and functionally of course.
So I'm going to grab a set of weights. I chose red because it's Valentine's Day in a couple of days, so you like that? Okay. Grab some light weights maybe 5-10 pounds. If you haven't been doing this in a while guys, just grab like 2 pounds or even just water bottles, if you haven't been to gym a lot.
So find the wall, follow me over here. I'm going to have you just put your butt right flat against that wall, okay? I want your legs to be parallel to each other, toes pointing forward, and what I'm going to have you do is while maintaining a straight back, I just want you to hinge at the hips. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you the name of this. This is a Wall Deadlift to Shoulder Blade Squeeze or Scapular Contraction, but we'll just keep it at Shoulder Blade Squeeze.
So you're holding the weights, and your palms are facing each other, and you're just kind of hinge at the hips. See how my back is not rounding, not like this. I always yell at you guys, don't do this. You want to keep it nice and a straight. So you are just keeping your butt against the wall. You can bend your legs slightly if you like to, because I know sometimes your hamstrings are really tight. So you are just going to come forward till your back is parallel to the ground, and you're going to squeeze your shoulder blades and then bring it back up and repeat.
So all the way down this is working your lower back and upper back. And what this is doing is it's working the scapular muscle and all the traps, rhomboids up in the upper back and this helps with your posture and this helps when you strengthening those muscles around spine, it helps in stabilizing the spine as well, and it helps with functionality as well.
So the deadlift is an awesome exercise, the reason though I want you guys to do this against the wall is because it supplies with support. Now, I do have a podcast on back exercises that shows you how to do a correct deadlift. f you feel like this is maybe a little too beginner, checkout that podcast. It's on MadeFitTV.com. And if you have any questions about any of the exercises that we did today, please email me at Askjenny on MadeFitTV.com. You can email me your questions, and a lot of these question become topics for the show. I always email everyone back, very promptly, within 24 hours because I'm constantly working. So I want to hear from you and I really appreciate your input. And if you have any questions about today, any specific questions, please email me, because I'd rather you ask the question and have me answer before go out and maybe do something wrong.
And also subscribe to these videos at MadeFitTV.com, because these will just upload and as soon as we upload them, it's just going to email right to you and then you can just watch it right there, as opposed to having to subscribe any other video feeding network.
So also I'm on Twitter. I'll let you if I'm on the Ustream through Twitter. So follow me there because you'll get all the updates on what we're doing week by week, day by day and I'm @jennydidonato, and also I love friends, find me up on Facebook, I'm Jennifer DiDonato on the Facebook.
And hey! you know what, just to end it off, like I said we have Valentine's Day coming up in a couple of days; Question of the day, in the Comment section below, just answer one question, what are you doing for Valentine's day? Let me know. I like food, so that's what I kind of want to do it, I want to have like maybe a sushi or -- so let me know what you're doing. So thanks so much for joining us, and we will see next time on MadeFitTV.
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