Back & Core Strengthening Exercises

Jessica Dawn — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:22:24 +0000

In my last post, I reviewed the importance of both back strengthening exercises and stretching as a method for staying mobile and preventing injury. Since I wrote the post, I’ve been wondering how I could offer more resources to help you incorporate more back exercises into your regular workout routine.

Today I found a great answer. I came across a fantastic YouTube video that demonstrates some excellent back & core strengthening exercises that will fit into any weight training workout.

The video is done by a personal trainer and offers a good explanation of about ten exercises. It’s about 8 minutes long and the exercises are demonstrated in quick succession. If you are serious about performing some of these exercises, you may want to take a quick set of notes or watch it a few times in a row.

Toward the end of the video, he demonstrates some exercises that should be excluded from your back routine for 4-6 weeks. I am not really sure of his reason for avoiding these exercises, but if you decide to follow his recommendations exactly, let me know about your results.
Follow this link to watch the back strengthening video.

Including two or even three different exercises everyday or every other day along with two or three stretches is something I highly recommend, especially if you fall into one of the following categories:

You are over 21 years old.
You have had back pain at any time during your life.
You regularly participate in sports that require jumping, cutting, running, or sprinting.
You have a job that requires a lot of sitting.
You perform heavy lifting on a regular basis.

So that basically includes 95% of the people living in the United States! I’m serious, take notes on a few of these exercises and do them! You’ll thank me…If you already do your exercises and still have chronic back pain, you might want to check out this website I found that deals with rehabilitation and natural pain management.

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Back Strengthening Exercises

Jessica Dawn — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:08:36 +0000

Back strengthening exercises, specifically lower back strengthening exercises, are an important part of any well balanced workout routine. For me, even though I know it’s important, I find it very easy to skip the strengthening and stretching of the lower back. The exercises are kind of boring, I don’t get overly fatigued, and it takes time away from other fun exercises like running, jumping rope, or lifting weights.

The only way I can motivate myself to make an effort to perform lower back strengthening and stretching on a regular basis is to remind myself that it helps prevent fluke injuries and develops my body strength in a balanced way. It helps me stay motivated enough to do the exercises at least once per week.

In case you needed some direction on which exercises to do or how to do them, I found two reference articles you can use as guides to incorporating lower back exercises into your routine. The first article demonstrates back strengthening exercises with the use of an exercise ball. The second article shows lower back stretches and strengthening moves you can do at home, without any equipment.

I also wanted to give you some of my strategies for incorporating these exercises into your regular workout.

Strategies
*One of my strategies for including lower back exercises in my routine is to perform the exercises between sets.

*Rotate between lower back and core exercises to keep your heart rate elevated during your workout.

*Lower Back exercises and stretching at the end of my workout as a cool-down.

In addition to preventing injuries, improving strength and flexibility of abdominal and back muscles helps to stabilize the spine and make it easier to maintain correct posture. Five or ten minutes a week of invested time can prevent weeks of slow recovery and continual pain (I know about this very well). Instead of ignoring the importance of these exercises, just give in and do them! You’ll thank me!

Oh ya…If you do your exercises and still have chronic back pain, you might want to check out this website I found that deals with rehabilitation and natural pain management.

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Back & Core Strengthening Exercises

Back Strengthening Exercises