I often see my pal Colin when I need some kinks working out of my back. As a body worker - massage with some of Tom Myer's Anatomy Trains approaches - he really know his stuff.He is currently using facebook to post interesting bits and pieces of remedial exercises and ideas on injury treatment.
Go over to his page on facebook, and click "like" so that you can keep up with the stuff he is writing. (Also visit his blog)
Here is the latest post (which accurately describes my back problems!):
When I get a new client one of the more common problem areas they come to me with will be their lower back. There’s also a pretty good chance that they spend most of the day sitting down so the source of the problem can, in some respects, be easy to identify. [edit - by the way there is an interesting piece on sitting here] Aside from poor posture and its associated problems one of the biggest contributory factors are the gluteals and gluteus medius in particular.
When we are sitting the gluteals are being stretched which over time causes them to become inactive, weak and, from a fascial point of view, tight. The primary role of glute medius is to stabilise the pelvis when we walk or run the loss of the ability of gluteus medius to do it’s job properly obviously will then cause a reduction of stability in the pelvis as we move.
This instability causes muscles in the torso such as the obliques and quadratus lumborum to have to work harder to stabilise the torso as they lack the base of a stable pelvis. This is compounded by the fact that the the increased fascial tension moves through what Tom Myers would call the lateral line from the gluteals and into the obliques and as a result affecting the back. While there is more to it all than what I’ve outlined above it would turn this short post into a much longer and not necessarily any more informative post so let’s get onto how to help fix it.
We want to try to activate and strengthen the glutes so this is a great exercise to do just that and comes with a great explanation from Dr Bill Booker. It is also a great exercise to include in any athlete’s warm up protocol .
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