• Structurally, the lumbar spine (aka low back) contains lots of nerve channels and outlets to the entire lower portion of the body and contributes to overall body mobility.  
• Even day-to-day, some of the most common injuries that occur are to the low back.  In fact, ~70% of people will encounter low back pain at some point in their lifetime.  
• A tactile way to gauge how a client may be encouraging or hindering low back health in their day-to-day life is to ask him or her to bend forward, as if picking up something off the floor.
  • If the client hinges at the waist (body becomes angled), they are moving correctly.
  • If they start rounding their neck to initiate the bend (body becomes a “C”), undue tension can be introduced to the spine.  
  • With chronic incorrect spinal rounding, low back health can become compromised.  
  • This day-to-day wear on the spine is, of course, in addition to clear injuries to the low back (post-surgical, car accidents, etc) that clients may also have! 

How True40 Can Strengthen the Spine

• Two of the best full body exercises you can do are Squats and Deadlifts, and both of these involve bending forward.  
• In class, we can also see people dropping their head and bending in the backs/stomach, creating the “C” shape.  Proper form would suggest the spine becoming almost straight, and parallel to the ground.

Good Cues for Hinging at the Waist

1. Keep your back straight and core muscles engaged. Stabilize your spine as you bend.
2.  As you bend your knees, allow your pubic bone to move backward, putting your weight into your heels.
3.  Fold over by allowing your pelvis to slide through your legs, down and back.
4. Engage your hamstrings and feel them lengthen as you hinge forward. 
5. Use your Glutes to hold the weight of your body instead of your back muscles.
6. Make sure the client is not hinging at shoulders (slumping/rounding), or hinging at the hips (curving sacral spine/tailbone downward).  You can think of one long line from the shoulders to the tailbone if the client is hinged at the waist correctly! 

The hips are ball and socket joints designed for movement!  As they bend, the hips rely on the hamstrings to compensatorily lengthen to complete the movement.  So, less flexible hamstrings may also contribute to low back discomfort.  

Corrections

• A touch point should be occurring between the instructor and client during every True40 class, either in a confirmatory touch or a correctional touch.  
• As you teach in the next couple weeks, I encourage you to think about corrections and assessing clients’ form more holistically.  
• By finding the “root problem” and offering a single correction, you may be able to solve multiple form abnormalities on one encounter — allowing you to be more present for other clients, and even providing a more positive interaction for the client you just corrected!
• For example, you see a client introducing some lumbar sway while in an Incline Chair Squat.
  • Scanning the body a little further, you see that she is also dumping some weight into one hip, and there is some supination of the right foot (weight is to the outer side of the foot).  
  • In this example, by re-centering the client by offering a more neutral foot stance, this may very well re-level the hips and align the back.  
  • A sturdy core connection is also key here!