Welcome back to this week’s edition of 2-Minute Tuesdays where we are talking about one exercise topic for two minutes and giving you three reasons why you should follow our advice. Now this week, we are talking to those of you who may be experiencing some low back tightness when you go to workout. What things do you need to keep in mind with your exercise to help keep the tightness at bay and still get all the benefits of working out?
1) Change The General Exercises To Specific
Exercise Tip Number One If Your Low Back Tightens Up With Working Out: Change every exercise that is general to a specific exercise. A lot of times, the choice of people working out is to do general exercises that include multiple joints and multiple areas of their body. When you have an area of your body, like your spine or your back that tightens up, you can switch to exercises that are little bit more “isolated” to a specific area of your body, excluding the symptomatic area.
Action Step: Think about the exercises you normally do during your workouts. How many of them focus on moving around only one joint or area of your body? If you can switch the other exercises to be more like these, you may notice some improvement in your symptoms.
Related: Exercise Tips If You Are Sore
2) Use The Rule of 50%
Exercise Tip Number Two If Your Low Back Tightens Up With Working Out: Use the rule of 50% – use half the weight, use half of the motion, do half of the volume. Keep reducing what you are doing in the gym until you can workout and your back feels good. Then you have a baseline, a starting place you can build from over the coming weeks. If you just keep trying to hammer away and what you are doing is too much, you’re never going to be able to catch up.
Action Step: The next time your back starts to tighten up when you are working out, stop. Take note of how much you had done up to that point. The next time you go to workout, do half of that. Do that for two weeks, then increase by 10%. If your back feels good with that after two weeks, increase by 10% again, and continue to follow this progression until you are able to do the amount of exercise that you would like to.
Related: Shoulder feeling achy? Stay safe with these exercise tips!
3) Be Mindful Of The Exercises That Are Causing The Tightness
Exercise Tip Number Three If Your Low Back Tightens Up With Working Out: Keep in mind the exercises that caused your back to tighten up. A lot of times, this information will allow someone (like an MAT® Specialist) to better understand the areas that are causing issues rather than the area that is feeling a symptom.
Action Step: Looking for guidance on what you should be doing in the gym? Enroll in our Virtual Membership Program here to have exercises custom-created for your body!