If your back muscles lack endurance, you may find that your back gets a little bit achy as you go through the day.
You might find that you're okay at the beginning of the day but as time goes on,
it gets a little bit achy and that's because the muscles are getting a little bit fatigued or tired,
not quite doing the job that they need to do.
Adding endurance exercises for your back with a resistance band can help with this.
You do have to remember it does take a little while to start to see a difference
and we'll go through that at the end of the video.
We'll suggest the repetitions for the exercises. We're going to be using a red band which is medium and it's 1.5 meters long.
At the end of the video, we'll also go through things to consider if you think the band strength
isn't quite right or the number of repetitions aren't quite right for you.
My name is Claire. I'm a Physiotherapist from PhysioFit Health.
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For this exercise, you've got your band and you're actually looping it around something sturdy like a table leg,
and then you are holding the other end of it and I'm sitting on a chair.
You can actually do this if you've got one of the big gym balls.
You can actually do this sat on a gym ball as well.
You're going to hold the other end of the band and just pull it so it's on a little bit of tension
and you're going to hold it with both hands to your chest.
You're sitting upright so you've got that imaginary bit of string
that's pulling yourself up a little bit taller and then you're thinking about hinging at the hips,
which means you are leaning forward, the bands pulling you forward.
You're keeping that back nice and straight and it's just a hinge at the hips
and then you're very slowly going to raise yourself back up to your upright position
and that's you working against the band so forward the band is assisting you
and then as you're sitting yourself all the way back up again, the band's just creating a bit of resistance.
So you're wanting to really focus the brain on these muscles around the back of the body
and they should help you raise yourself all the way back upright.
You are doing 3 lots of 20 repetitions with this one.
For this exercise, you're going to loop the band around something nice and sturdy like a table leg,
so one end of the band is looped around the leg and then you're going to hold the other end of the band.
You're in high kneeling and you're going to place your right foot in front of you,
so if you need, you can get a rolled-up towel or something under the knee just for a little bit of comfort.
So the band's off to my left and I've got my right foot in front of me.
Holding the end of the band, I'm going to hold it with both hands up in front of me, so about shoulder height,
my shoulders are down and I've got that imaginary bit of string that's just pulling me up a little bit higher.
So that's my start position and then you are breathing out as you rotate your upper
body around to the right side, so that's putting tension on the band
and you're trying to rotate round as much as you can do, trying to get a bit of rotation
even into the lower part of the back and then you are slowly returning to your start position.
That's your movement, breathing out as you rotate around
and you are breathing in as you bring yourself back to your start position.
You are doing your 3 lots of 20 repetitions and then you're going to repeat on the other side.
So this exercise, I've got the band looped to something sturdy, so tie double knot in one end
and I'm obviously lying on the floor, it's just off to my right, so the opposite end of the band
I'm just going to loop it a couple of times around my hands, I'm going to hold it with both hands.
So I've put a bit of tension on this band, it's pulling my arms over to the right, so I want to keep my arms dead center.
My back's against the floor, my knees are bent and my feet are down flat, so that's my start position.
I'm going to tuck my tailbone underneath which is going to flatten the back against the floor
and then I'm going to slowly raise my hips all the way up into my bridge position.
This bridge is the articulated bridge, so you're trying to get the spinal segments away, segment by segment.
And then you are slowly going to roll yourself all the way back down to your start position.
So you've got an imaginary bit of Velcro down your back, so you're stuck to the mat
and then you're going to peel the spine away from the low back first
and then you're going to roll yourself all the way up so you rest just in between your shoulder blades
and then you are slowly going to roll yourself back down in reverse.
Now, you're aiming for your 3 lots of 20 repetitions
and then you're going to repeat with the bands pulling in the opposite direction,
just so you can get each side nice and equal.
Try one or all of these endurance exercises for the back with a resistance band and see how you do.
When focusing on endurance, you do want a lighter band
and you want to increase the number of repetitions that you do.
If you're finding the suggestions we've made on repetitions isn't quite right for you,
I'd actually suggest increasing the number of repetitions before you change the strength on the band.
If you increase the strength on the band, you'll start to recruit some of the larger muscles
rather than working on those smaller postural muscles.
You could even change the repetitions rather than counting,
you can change them into a time-based exercise, so you'd be doing the exercise for a 45 seconds.
Generally speaking, it takes about 6 weeks for you to start to see a difference in muscle strength.
So give yourself a good chunk of time before checking on your progress.
In the description below, we'll link to a couple of videos we've created on How to Choose a Right Resistance Band
and How Many Repetitions for Endurance Exercises, if you want to have a look into this a little bit further.
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