If you had to ask someone from nearly every population you see in a gym setting, what they were most afraid of hurting a large majority of them would likely say their back, or maybe their lower back. This fear isn’t entirely irrational when you think about it. If you hurt your leg, you may focus a little more on your upper body, you hurt your shoulder, maybe you pay more attention to your lower body that week. However, when the back gets hurt it could affect the way we perform every other movement.
It is this mentality that has unfortunately led to this fear of ever loading the spine, and this brings us to a big problem, you are babying your spine. Spinal conditioning has become more entrenched in the world of rehabilitation which advises us to not twist, or rotate, or flex, or load the spine.
But here’s the thing, that fear creates more dysfunction than an injury itself.
This is especially important for those participating in sport of any level, because there will be many situations which require violent rotation, axial loading, and moving through complex positions while fatigued.
A lot of athletes have come to us after tweaking their back in a practice or game, or even just moving a weird way in their everyday life. Nothing super catastrophic, just enough to scare them from reaggravation. They often get told to “rest” or “take it easy”, and are given a list of rehab drills. This can be really sound advice temporarily, but often reinforces that fear of training that affected that area like an athlete.
I Used to Baby the Spine, Too
Early in my coaching career, I was guilty of overcorrecting. I’d see someone with back pain and immediately strip away any kind of load, limit their movement, and wrap them in a cocoon of “safe” exercises.
The intention was good. But the result?
Athletes who were afraid to move.
Afraid to lift.
Afraid to trust their bodies.
If you are going to take away anything from reading this I want you to understand that your spine isn’t as fragile as you think it is. It’s actually seriously strong, it wants to be loaded and trained. However, stability in the spine isn’t about locking it down and never moving, it’s about controlling movement under load with the right intent. This means sprinting, rotating, absorbing contact, bracing under a heavy barbell and so on.
So how do we go about ensuring we are developing these qualities in the core or spine?
- Axial Loading
- Anti Movement training
- Isometrics
- Train all planes
Axial Loading
One of the largest functions of the structure of the spine is actually to withstand compression forces. Why not lean in to what it’s best at gradually and with intention.
This could look like introducing front and back barbell squats for overall stability, trapbar deadlifts to improve resilience to not only compressive but shearing forces, and add in some carries like zercher carries or overhead carries to teach stabilization under real life pressure.
These lifts build a strong, supported spine—not a fragile one. But we scale them. We earn the right to load heavy by first mastering control.
Anti Moving Training
A big part of making sure your spine stays safe is core work, shocker right. Keep in mind that core work doesn’t always have to be as simple as crunches all day, instead we perform core work that supports the stability of the spine. This involves exercise that promote anti-movement, such as:
anti-extension through exercises like ab rollouts
Anti-Rotation through exercises like pallof presses
Anti-lateral flexion through exercises like suitcase carries
These movements build the deep, reflexive stability athletes need to absorb force, change direction, and resist chaos—without reinforcing stiffness
Isometrics
Now because the spine is involved in essentially every physical movement performed, it doesnt need to be trained in isolation. Instead it can be trained by challenging it isometrically to create stability and transfer force.
Some methods we like to use are:
Heavy holds or yielding isometrics such as farmers carries or wall sits
Dynamic stability lifts such as introducing tools like chains or bands to force the spine to stabilize under varying tension
Using Tempos or paused lifts to increase the amount of time the spine must maintain stability
Train in multiple planes
Training the spine to be stable is a great place to start, but the truth is our bodies naturally have the ability to move in multiple planes, and therefore you should train in all three.
Most fundamental and common lifts take place in the Sagittal plane for movements like squats and deadlifts.
If you haven’t already try exploring movements in the frontal plane like suitcase carries, lateral lunges and copenhagen side planks
Many of us are afraid to move rotationally because of what it may do to our spine, but progressing movements like rotational throws, and twists will actually decrease the level of risk we may face when rotating.
Ignoring rotation because you’re afraid of hurting your back is like telling a sprinter to stop running because hamstrings can get strained.
Take Away
Many athletes come off herniated discs, back spasms, which can put them in a state of fear-based training. The spine may be prone to injury but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated like an essential area of your training – Just remember to respect it and progress it.
Training your spine like an athlete means you stop treating it like it’s broken.
You don’t build resilience by playing it safe forever. You build it by preparing for the real demands of sport, of movement, and of life.
