[quote]alexus wrote:
Wow. It is like you are channeling on my thoughts on this last year…
I got it into my head that ALL spinal flexion was bad and that any pain in my lumbar spine (I had quite a lot of it) was due to my not being as good as I should at holding proper lumbar extension in my daily life…
But then I read something about how babies can roll around on their backs happily enough… And I thought to myself that probably humans should be able to flex their spines (UNLOADED!) pain free just as part of a normal range of motion.
And then I got to thinking about how wrestlers and MMA fighters would pick each other up with flexed spines and they seemed mostly okay… And how strongmen picked up atlas stoned with flexed spines and they also seemed mostly okay…
And then I read some stuff… And got to thinking…
I think in my own case I got anterior pelvic tilt confused with ‘neutral’. Some people do tend to allow themselves to fall into flexion, yes, and these people need to be cued to hold their lumbar arch. There are other people, however, who have a natural tendency towards anterior pelvic tilt. If these people think to themselves ‘neutral spine’ or ‘hold your lumbar arch’ they sometimes overextend their lumbar arch - which can lead to lumbar pain because of jamming the disks the other way.
IN MY OWN CASE (YMMV) I thought I was hurting my back because I was flexing… But it turns out I was hurting my back because I was overextending (thinking that overextending was holding it in neutral).
What fixed me up: LIterally… Rolling around on my back like a baby (curling up - gradually and gently over time - in as tight a fetal position as possible). Then (gentle!) cat-camel drills (4 pt stance, flexing and extending the spine) - ‘neural flossing’, mcgill calls it. It gave me a better sense of what neutral spine really was. The stick (balancing it). Learning what neutral really was again (Though apparently soft tissue alignment can mislead depending).
IF pistols are hurting your back:
- Are you dropping your pelvis to one side when you do these (or are your hips staying level)?
(I’m worrying about the SI joint)
Or maybe it isn’t the pistols that are hurting your back…[/quote]
Sounds exactly like me. Pretty much everything terrible I’ve done to myself training has been from misapplying things of that sort. Overextending my SI joints on squats and deadlifts, tucking my elbows like crazy on the various presses, etc…
Your body is smart, let it do what it wants a little more…