Ideally, the human body is centered with a stable lumbar spine, then exhibits alternating mobile/stable/mobile/stable etc… joints along the kinetic chain up through the neck and arms, and down through the hips to the feet. (shown in the picture.) When we lose stability or mobility in a given joint, the surrounding joints are forced to compensate. For example, an overly mobile lumbar spine causes every joint in the kinetic chain to be the opposite of what it should be! The hips and shoulders get tight and lose mobility, the thoracic spine tightens and loses mobility, the knees and neck can become hyper mobile, all in order to compensate for the lack of stability at our core! Once this compensation occurs the entire kinetic chain gets thrown out of whack!
In functional movements, loss of lumbar stability is where we start compensating and creating bad form. Whenever the lumbar spine becomes mobile, it is moving because your core is not strong enough to maintain a neutral position against the tightness in your hips/shoulders (ball and socket joints.) Your hips and shoulders are ball and socket joints, and are meant to be mobile. The lumbar spine, however, is not. It is the anchor to the entire kinetic chain!
Moving the lumbar spine under load can/will wear your discs down. Your body transfers force up and down through the spine, it’s what the spine is meant to do! Under the heavy load of a barbell your body is experiencing this vertical force in larger quantities. If you begin to move your spine under that heavy load, that large vertical force will transfer to uneven pressure across the top/bottom of your discs and can squeeze them out into herniations like popped zits! Bad news!
A neutral spine is always best because it keeps this disc pressure even across the entire surface. But if you have to, under load, a stable bent spine is better than an unstable/mobile one. Two classic examples of this that I see in the gym frequently occur in the deadlift. Ideally the spine should be neutral through the entire range of motion, not rounded or hyperextended. However, some people cannot get into a neutral spine at the bottom position of a deadlift and perform the movement with a stable, but rounded spine throughout the movement. This isn’t as bad as someone who has a rounded spine at the bottom position and straightens it out to neutral or hyperextension at the top, and rounds it again when returning to the bottom! That spinal movement during load will cause a disc herniation quicker than staying stable.
Rounded spine Hyperextended Spine Neutral Spine
A stable lumbar spine isn’t just for safety, it transfers to performance in a variety of ways. The lumbar is the area of the body where force is exchanged between upper and lower limbs. The “core” musculature surrounding the lumbar spine can tighten up and store the force of a movement for good transfer, like when throwing a ball, or performing a kettlebell swing. If this “core” musculature is loose or slack then we lose a lot of that stored energy transfer. An example would be like trying to do a high jump on a gelatinous surface. When you press hard into the ground to jump, the gelatinous surface absorbs a lot of the force preventing you from jumping high. So if your core is gelatinous you cannot transfer force up or down in movement. J-E-L-L-Oh no!
That’s the secret! That’s all there is to it! How well can you maintain lumbar stability across the widest range of motion, in the largest number of kinesthetic movements, at as many intensities as possible? You cultivate that and you’ll be an amazing athlete with much less potential for injury during any/all movement. You’ll cultivate very mobile hips, shoulders, thoracic spine, ankles and wrists, and your knees, elbows, neck and lumbar spine will remain intact because they won’t wear down from excessive movement from being hypermobile.
The paradox is that we pay more attention to the moving parts of our body than the non-moving ones! When I throw a ball, I think about my arm, not my core. When I squat it’s guaranteed that my knee and hips are going to move, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll do that with a strong-engaged core. In martial arts, I cannot throw a punch without extending my arm, but I can definitely punch without any mindfulness to how well my midsection is engaged in order to get good force transfer in a biomechanically sound position at the moment my fist strikes the target.
Neutral lumbar spine in a pitch Hyperextended lumbar spine in a pitch
Work hard at training the lumbar spine to be stable while in the gym, because real life exposes you to more spontaneous movements where the lumbar spine will be forced to move. Having the awareness of good lumbar position will help you during those spontaneous moments in knowing when the lumbar is unstable and how to return it to stability. Exotic techniques (like the circus de soleil contortionists in the video post last week) are going to move your lumbar spine. As a fitness practitioner it’s priceless to know when that happens, how far from the midline it's moved, and how to maintain stability at bent angles before you can recover to neutral again. That is how you’ll relate your movement to performance and safety.
So check your form the next time you’re in the gym:
- Do you butt-wink at the bottom of a squat?
- Do you overhead press slightly in front of your midline?
- Does your back round in a deadlift?
- Can you reach full hip extension in an olympic lift?
- Do you have to bend your lumbar spine in order to touch your toes?
- Can you perform a GHD Hip Extension with full unbroken range of motion?
- When you run, jog or sprint; is your core relaxed and saggy?
See the previous posts,
High Intensity Stillness Before High Intensity Movement to help you bring awareness to your lumbar stability.
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