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

In a previous post, I covered some of the worst things you can do to your back, which included potentially harmful core exercises such as the abdominal crunch.

So if you had to take out crunches because the risk-to-benefit ratio wasn’t in your favour, what could you do instead?

If you aren’t already aware, the functions of the core are to resist movement and to transfer energy. Keeping this in mind, how could you set up your core exercises to target the appropriate muscles without putting you at undue risk?

Over the next few posts I’ll breakdown some of the exercises I consider to be indispensable when rehabbing a back injury, wanting a tight and toned midsection or improving athletic function.

The first exercise, which I’ll cover today is called the suitcase carry.

If the first thing that came to your mind was a picture of you walking around with a suitcase, you wouldn’t be far off the mark!

As the name implies, this exercise is simply walking around with a weight in one hand, mimicking the act of carrying a suitcase.

That’s it.

Don’t be misled by the simplicity of this movement, however!

While the set up and execution are rather straight-forward, the burn you will feel is intense.

How to set it up:

Pick a weight that you’ll find challenging for the distance or time you’ll be walking with it. This is the one of the most important parts of this exercise.

If you don’t have a dumbbell, you can improvise and actually use a suitcase filled with books or other items to give it some heft. In a pinch, cinder blocks or water-filled milk jugs will do. You’re only limited by your imagination!

Once you have a weight selected, stand up tall with a neutral spine. Keep your head and chest up and start walking slow and purposefully. Your posture is a key component and will let you know if the weight is too much, not enough or just right.

At first, you may not feel anything at all. Then suddenly, you may find yourself tilting your torso away from the side carrying the load, your unloaded arm held out to the side as a counterbalance. You need to fix this: stand up tall and bring your arm back down!

When done correctly, you’ll start to feel a fairly intense burning sensation along the obliques and lower back on the opposite side from the arm holding the weight. So if you are holding the weight in your right hand, you’ll feel the burn on the left side. This is normal. The muscles of the unloaded side are the one that have to do all the work to keep your body erect.

Walk the for the distance or the time you’ve selected and then switch sides.

Simple yet effective: this is a hard core exercise.

Give it a try and let me know how it felt.

Yours in 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

In the realm of injury rehab which includes low back pain prevention and treatment, there are many exercises that are extolled as imperative for proper function. Most of these are granted the high honour of being called “CORE” exercises.

Stabilize your core. Strengthen your core. Turn on your core. Activate your core. 

I’m sure all of these are very familiar statements that you’ve heard when dealing with your low back pain. 

The problem with many of these is that they don’t actually take into consideration the functional anatomy of the involved or recruited structures. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the muscles that make up the abs…

The rectus abdominis or “six pack” muscle is essentially formed by two bands of muscles which are further sectioned into 8 “rectangles” by intersecting tendons. 

Separation of the abdominal muscle

So why is the structure so important?

For starters, the structure of anatomical body-bits is defined by the purpose of those body-bits. 

Form follows function.

According to Dr. Stuart McGill in Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance the “rectus, by virtue of its beaded architecture, is not made to create force over a range in length-yet it is currently popular to perform curl-ups over a gym ball for example.”

In even more basic words, by its design, the six pack muscle was not designed to perform sit-up type motions, if it were, it wouldn’t be sectioned the way it is.

Instead, it would be two long uninterrupted bands of tissue (much like the hamstrings muscle on the back of the thigh). 

So if it isn’t made to crunch, what’s it made to do?

Based on it’s elegant design, the abs were made to RESIST motion and transfer power from the hips.

One of the best exercises to train this quality is the front plank as demonstrated in the following short clip.

Yours in planking.

Dev Chengkalath

Step 1. Nutrition: If you missed my post on eating like crap, maybe you should go back a few days and take a look. What and how you eat plays one of the biggest roles in what your abs look like. If you’re eating like crap check out the ultimate nutrition system used by some of the top physiques in the world. You may have the most ripped six pack, but it does you no good if  it’s covered by a layer of fat.

Step 2. Resistance train: Push, pull, throw, jump, crawl, hold or ______ (fill in the blank with any other movement you can think of). Lift weights, throw medicine balls, swing kettlebells, do sprints, or use bands. Do it with high intensity. And no excuses. 

Your muscles won’t build themselves.

There you have it.

You can be the proud owner of these in just two steps!

Two simple (not easy) steps to build your ultimate six pack. 

Eat hard and train harder.

Dev Chengkalath