So you got some low back pain they want to fix? Well, do me a favor and break out
a notepad and a pen and then drop them on the floor. I promise you, it's going to work.
What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com. So what happened? Did you actually bend over and pick
it up or is it still on the floor? Well, I will break out my muscle marker because this is a kind
of pen that I use and I'll drop it right here on the floor and I'm going to pick it up. But
I want you to notice the difference here. When you did yours, did you look like this when you
picked it up? Or did you look like this when we picked it up? Now, if you didn't even notice the
difference there that's a little bit scary. But you know what, you're in the right spot here,
I'm going to take care of you in this video. Everyone knows who's ever had to deal with back
pain or maybe they're dealing with back pain right now, whether it's disc related or muscle spasms
in your low back, is a little bit uncomfortable to be bending forward to do anything. However,
I'm telling you right now, bending forward and learning how to do it the right way is going to
be the key to unlocking your long-term permanent solution to your back pain. So that being said,
instead of drawing all over myself with a muscle marker in this video to help you fix your problem,
I'm going to take it to the next level, I'll meet you over at the board, the telestrator.
That's now. Before we look at shirtless Jeff here, let's take a look back at shirted Jeff
in these two versions of the pickup. So if you look at them side by side now, it should become
very apparent very quickly what the difference was. In one of them I was just simply bending
forward at the waist and picking up what's on the floor. And in the other one, I'm doing something
a little bit prettier. Or at least it looks biomechanically prettier because I'm actually
doing the direct opposite. The low back is maybe what's sticking out to you. It's flexing forward
in this one here and it's actually just staying straight and this one here. But that's not really
what's happening. Look below that at the hips. At the hips, I'm simply flexing forward or allowing
gravity to flex me forward in this one. But I'm hinging backwards in the other one. And that's the
key. You need to learn the proper biomechanics of your hip joint in order to get your back
in the right position to perform time, over time, over time without becoming injured. So what better
way to learn how to do this properly than with an exercise that we can all do? This is an RDL,
you don't have to have a heavy weight to do this, but having a bar in your hand or even a dowel
will allow you to feel what I'm talking about, because the biofeedback you get from the bar
riding up and down your legs is going to make you know that you're in the right position.
So we have a comparison here, an improperly performed one in a properly performed. Let's
start with the properly performed one. You can see here that the initiation of getting that bar down
to the floor had nothing to do with me bending at the waist, bending forward. It has everything
to do with right there the hips traveling back in this direction. What I want you to focus on
is making sure it goes straight back and forth. If you imagine that there's a dresser behind you
with a drawer that's been left open, you want to be able to allow your butt to close that drawer.
Right. It's one of the best analogies out there gets you to realize that is simply just a straight
back and forth motion that drives your ability to get down lower to the ground. Most of us think
that to get low, we have to get our head lower to the ground because that's where our eyes are.
Really, what we need to do is just simply get the hips back and that will bring the head with it.
So if we watch what this does, we see that getting the butt straight back, yes, it closes that drawer
and it gets me all the way down to the ground. Now, the bar travel, what's going on there? Unlike
what's happening over here, the bar is going to stay directly in contact with my legs and you see
all the way down, all the way down past the knees, the knees don't have to bend very much to get out
of the way, they stay right there. The bar has traveled straight up and down. Okay, now what's
driving the bar back up? The same thing that got it down to the ground you're going to now,
instead of bringing the hips backwards, you're going to bring the hips forward and you'll see
that that will bring that bar straight up again, straight up by letting the butt come this way.
Now, what's improper? What's improper is allowing this to bend forward.
Why does that cause back pain? Just like when you did the incorrect version, we bent over to pick up
the pen. Well, two things happen. Number one, you're putting way too much stress on the low
back muscles because the glutes don't want to do their job. Right there, look it, there hasn't been
any real posterior motion here of the hips. It's all occurring by leaning forward with the back.
When that happens, we get the muscles of the low back that act like the reins on a horse.
As the horse starts to get in front of you, you want to pull back to control the horse,
well the same things happening here. As that weight starts to get down or worse, as you'll
see here out in front of you, the low back muscles are saying, hold on and they're trying
to grab netcentric hold on to pull you back. Well, at some point they're going to be overtaxed.
They're going to come to a point where they're just over fatigued and they say that's enough.
They become strained. You have a spasm, whatever it is, but you get a lot of discomfort. It might
be a position you find yourself in right now. The fact is it's not that one time that caused it,
though it's what you felt was the leading cause of it. It's what led to that over the period of many,
many, many, many days, weeks and months is that doing the improper mechanics on the forward bend
is what caused that to become fatigued to the point where it gives out on that one single time.
So understand that we want to fix this, fix it every single time you pick something up,
not just with a barbell in your hand, but we are picking something off the floor. So if I go back
here and I let it play out, if I let that bar drift, that's just increased that moment arm and
causing more strain on those low back muscles to have to do more work to control that weight as it
drifts out longer, longer away from my hips. So the fact is, guys, you have to learn how to
do this properly, dragging that bar straight up and down is a good feedback to know that you're
doing this right. But most importantly, it's the motion simply back and forth of the hips
that drives proper hip extension and that gets you in position to do this right every single time
and saves you back in the process. So there you have it, guys, with the
remedial task of simply learning how to bend forward and maybe even tie your shoelaces,
you've now learned how to bulletproof your back to preventing back pain in the future. Guys,
listen, it's all about learning how to create a formidable body, not just a strong one, but one
that is resilient to injury in the long run. Guys, if you're looking for our step-by-step plans,
we have all laid out for you over athleanx.com. In the meantime, if you found the video helpful,
leave your comments and thumbs up below. Let me know what else I can cover for you. As a physical
therapist I like to dive into these topics from time to time. You let me know what I can help
you with and I ll do just that. Also, make sure you hit subscribe and turn on your notifications,
so you never miss a new video when we put one out. Okay guys, see you soon.