Relieve Low Back Pain | Reduce Low Back Pain | Canada's Leading Authority in Human Movement | Dev Chengkalath

I realize I left off the last post with all of you yearning for those fantastic ab wheel exercises.

I’ve been extremely busy at the clinic doing my physical therapy thing this past month and I apologize for making you wait and for the dearth in posting.

I promise I will make it up to you!

But…

Before I get into the actual exercises I just wanted to list my top 6 reasons why the ab wheel is such a versatile core training device:

1. Simple and easy to use
2. Small, lightweight and portable
3. Needs only body weight
4. Very affordable
5. Effective and efficient
6. Can be used by anyone, from beginners to professionals

So without further ado, here are a few ab wheel exercises from easiest to incredibly challenging.

1. The basic roll out: Start in a kneeling position and just roll out as far as you can from your hips keeping your back and stomach tight and braced. Don’t let your low back arch up or sink down.

2. Angled roll outs: Start in the same position as the basic roll out, however, instead of rolling straight out, angle your direction of travel.

3. Full standing roll outs: Start in a standing position with the ab wheel at your feet. Roll out as far as you can and then roll back in to the original standing position.

Give these a try but do remember to work within your limits.

While the basic roll out, done with a shorter reach, is fairly simple and straight-forward, the other variations can be extremely challenging and do carry a greater degree of risk. The farther out you take your arms, the harder this exercise will be. 

To your ab rolling.

Dev Chengkalath

In keeping with the theme of body weight exercises, I just wanted to touch on what I consider one of the best tools to enhance your core: The Ab Wheel. 

I’m sure many of you are familiar with this simple yet powerful piece of exercise equipment.

It’s pretty much a wheel with small handles poking out of each side. 

Marvel of modern engineering

This elegant design allows the ab wheel to outperform all those fancy ab-training devices that you may have been tempted to buy during those nights where your insomnia met those compelling fitness infomercials.

Now you’re probably wondering why the ab wheel is so special?

Well, for starters, this little device lets you target the core appropriately.

The core, as I’ve written about before on this blog, is not specifically designed to flex the torso as most people think.

If it were, the muscles would look a lot different than they do.

This is one of the reasons why exercises like sit-ups and crunches are not the best types of core exercises to prevent or relieve low back pain.

In fact, if the main purpose of the abs were to flex the torso, the stomach muscles would look more like the hamstrings and not the typical six-pack.

Hamstrings: long, straight bands of muscle

Abdominals: sectioned and multidirectional

Looking at functional anatomy, the core is designed to resist movement and to act as an energy transfer link between the upper and lower body. It essentially acts like your body’s own internal corset which protects your spine and keeps your back healthy.

And that’s just what the ab wheel does.

It forces you to hold your core tight and neutral while moving through the hips. As an added bonus, you’ll work on your shoulder stability and control as well.

In my experience as a physical therapist, shoulder injuries are the second most common type of injury I see at the clinic. 

So why not do yourself a favour and protect the two most often injured areas at once?

If you don’t already have one of these marvels of modern fitness engineering at home, you can pick one up HERE.

In my next post, I’ll go over a few of the top ab roller movements and give you beginner to more advanced exercises. 

To your abdominal rolling.

Dev Chengkalath

If you suffer from low back pain, I’m willing to bet that you’ve been told to “strengthen your core” from someone, somewhere, at some point. Maybe your doctor, maybe your physical therapist, or maybe even from Uncle Johnny or Auntie Suzy. 

While I do believe that having a strong core helps, I don’t believe it will protect you from low back injury or pain. Often, it won’t even help you relieve the pain you already have. And at worst, it could do you harm.

I’ve seen this first hand in my physiotherapy practice in Toronto. I’ve had clients come in who had taken this advice to heart, and for years, they had worked on their abs. This usually involved a whole routine of abdominal curls, crunches and twists, with hundreds or thousands of repetitions a week. Their abs did get strong, but they didn’t relieve their low back pain. Sometimes, they actually made it worse.

They went about it the wrong way.

So what should you do if you shouldn’t strengthen your core with curls, crunches and twists?

Improve your muscular endurance with stability exercises!

Dr. Stuart McGill, one of the world’s foremost spine researchers, discusses this concept in depth in his book Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance. He presents a strongly supported, evidence-based argument for the back-protective nature of improving muscular endurance as opposed to doing the same with muscular strength.

A must read for low back health.

So where does that leave you if you can’t get your daily fix of abdominal work?

Just give the following series of exercises a go to improve your core endurance and spinal stability. 

Yours in movement,

Dev Chengkalath