Correctly Targeting The Lower Back Muscles
The leading cause of disability worldwide is back pain which accounts for 264 million lost work days a year, or two work days for every full-time worker in the country. Back pain affecting you doesn’t seem like a question of if it will happen, but when it will happen. That doesn’t have to be the case. With increased strength of the muscles in and around the low back, back pain can be avoided, reduced, or recovered from quickly.
The challenge with increasing strength around the low back is choosing the correct exercises to do so. Conventional back strengthening exercises often involve other muscles in the body that perform the work of the exercise, and take away from the benefits that the lower back musculature should be receiving .
Leg muscles often do the majority of the work in exercises that you would stereotypically think of as back strengthening exercises, while critical lumbar spine muscles remain neglected and don’t significantly strengthen. To correctly target the lower back muscles so that they get the benefit, these muscles must be isolated. Fortunately, we have a machine in our facility that offers a unique way to isolate and strengthen those muscles; the Nautilus Lower Back.
Where Traditional Exercises Are Lacking
One traditionally recognized back strengthening exercise is the deadlift. It is a favorite exercise of many strong gym-goers because it is a compound movement that uses many muscles of the body, and therefore strengthens many muscles of the body. However, the deep muscles of the lower back are not strengthening as much as it is traditionally thought. This is because of a basic principle of muscle strengthening.
The overload principle of exercise states that in order for your body to adapt to gaining muscle size and strength, a muscle must be challenged to work close to it’s current capabilities in order to force the body to adapt. In deadlifts, many muscles are challenged to that point where they will significantly strengthen, but the smaller muscles in the lower back are not among that group. The muscles of the legs and hips that are much bigger and stronger than the lower back are doing the work and gaining strength from deadlifts and other similar exercises that are thought to be the best for lower back strength.
Arthur Jones, the inventor of the fitness equipment company Nautilus and of the Lower Back machine, discovered this fact when testing body builders. These men were extremely strong and well-built, but when Arthur tested the strength of their lower back muscles, he found that they were not very strong. This was a surprising discovery since they were bigger and stronger everywhere else compared to the average person. And these men were often performing deadlifts and other exercises that were at the time thought to be strengthening the lower back.
It was from this discovery that it became evident that the lower back muscles needed to be isolated so that they could be trained without bigger muscles taking over and performing the work.
How The Nautilus Lumbar Extension Differs
The Nautilus Nitro Lumbar Extension machine that we use has 2 seat belts which go over the trainee’s thighs, an L-shaped seat to block their sacrum, and a foot plate for their feet to rest on. This combination serves to restrain the pelvis, minimize the involvement of the leg muscles, and effectively isolate those smaller low back muscles.
On top of isolating the correct musculature, this machine keeps your back safe through the movement. It eliminates harmful shearing forces on the spine that a trainee might experience doing deadlifts, squats, or other movements that involve some low back use. It is safer for sensitive backs or backs with injury histories, making it possible to perform for the people who need to strengthen their backs the most.
80% of us – 4 out of 5 people – will experience low back pain in our lives. Low back pain is the #1 cause of disability in the workplace worldwide. The cause of most back pain is due to some type of soft tissue injury to the lower back muscles, tendons, or ligaments. We help our members heal, strengthen, and prevent future injuries to the lower back with our strengthening and stretching exercises. They can help you too – and are as simple as taking a few minutes of your day on the floor at home to complete. Take control of your back pain rehab, and prevent future flare ups with these exercises.
What Does Isolating Lower Back Muscles Do
The body doesn’t move in pure isolation. Preventing back pain does require strength in the muscles around the low back too such as the abdominal muscles, the hip muscles, and the upper leg muscles. But, contracting the lower back musculature through isolated movements has unique local benefits.
Strength itself is important in order to keep the spine stabilized and prevent the vertebrae from moving out of place or “going out”. Stronger muscles around the spine will prevent the back from going out when an excessive force hits you from a fall, a collision, or just when you are lifting something heavy. Having stronger muscles will also absorb the brunt of every day physical loads so your discs and vertebrae are managing less of a load every day, leading to a decrease in likelihood of overuse chronic injury.
Contracting muscles also decreases local inflammation. The more you contract a muscle, the more the arteries and veins leading to and from that area of the body dilate. The widening of these arteries and veins brings in a greater blood supply, and flushes out more from that area of the body. With greater blood supply going to your back, you are bringing in more healing agents of the body. Your lower back will be flooded with more nutrients, oxygen, and cellular repair agents which will rebuild and repair issues that the muscles, tendons, and ligaments may experience from wear and tear.
The increased blood flow also flushes out harmful substances that build up in your lower back. When tissues are strained, lactic acid and inflammatory waste build up. The increased blood flow brings these built up chemicals to the kidneys and liver to be filtered out. This will decrease the stimulation of nearby nerve endings which lower your overall pain levels.
The body has a defense mechanism to lock up your spine in an emergency to make sure the most important part of the body is protected. In order to prevent spinal nerve damage, if the body senses your vertebrae at risk of moving out of place, muscles around the spine will spasm and lock up to prevent any risk of damage to the spine and all the nerves running through it. This will cause stiffness and often causes pain, which is a greater alternative for your body compared to spinal damage. Being able to safely contract these muscles and move the spine through a safe range of motion sends a signal to the brain that the spinal cord is no longer at risk and those muscles that are involuntarily spasming are allowed to relax. Using the Nautilus Nitro Lower Back machine gives your body that signal which is extremely helpful to get rid of pain from the defensive spasming of those muscles.
Lastly, the increased isolated movement to the lower back rehydrates your spinal discs. Your discs do not have their own dedicated blood vessels. They rely on blood flow from surrounding tissue to absorb fluid and nutrients needed. This means that if you aren’t getting enough movement to the lower back, you aren’t getting sufficient hydration to your discs in order to heal and repair.
The Takeaway
It takes a village to keep you pain-free in your back. Strength above, below, and around the spine is needed to keep it in place and avoid injury. The strengthening of those surrounding muscles can be achieved in many exercises and forms of movement. However, the greatest method to keep your back strong and safe comes from strengthening the small lower back muscles that are deep and hard to target.
Localized movement is needed to keep the spinal discs lubricated, healing agents in the blood arriving in significant quantities, and recycle the inflammatory waste that builds up over time. Getting at those muscles in the most effective way is a matter of isolating them by doing an exercise that prevents the usage of larger muscles in the hips and legs. The machine that we use to achieve this goal that you will be hard pressed to find anywhere else is the Nautilus Nitro Lower Back.
Whether your goal is to get rid of back pain, or prevent back pain, we encourage you to directly target and strengthen the muscles in the lower back in the most effective way. We would love to invite you to experience a free training session with us so that you may feel the benefits of lower back training as a part of your session. Many of our clients who have come in to workout with us feel a drastic difference in how their back feels in as little as a few workouts. You may even leave that first free appointment with a noticeable change in how your back feels. If you live in Dunedin, Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Safety Harbor, or Oldsmar, book your free workout below.
