Lower Back Pain, Try Stretching Your Hips, Part 2

I have not gotten any younger this week.  Although by back is doing much better, it is still giving me little reminders from time to time it is still there.  So I stretch my hips and it feels better. And then I go on with my day, and the next day I stretch my hips, and it feels better.  However, I feel like I have hit sort of a lower-back-pain plateau here.  So I decided to again be proactive and add strengthening to stretching.

In order to maintain muscle balance one must stretch the tight muscle and strengthen the opposing weak muscle.  In my case the hip flexors are the tight muscles and the Glutes are the weak muscles.  And to be honest, after looking at myself in the mirror, I can see no reasonable person will claim my glutes are too strong.  Or big, Or really even there at all.  They need some work.

Unfortunately I, like most folks, am Quadriceps dominant.  What that means is whenever I do a lower-body exercise (Squat, Lunge, Squatting Lunge, Lunging Squat, etc.) my Quads immediately take over so my Glutes can sit back and enjoy the ride.  So job one is to teach those Glutes how to work again.  I followed these simple steps and BELIEVE me, I could tell they were working:

1. Lay on your side with the bottom leg bent so a 90-degree angle is formed at the hip and at the knee.
2. Hold your top leg straight with your foot flexed and rotated in so the toes point down at about a 45-degree angle,  
3. Make medium sized circles with your leg, 15 forward and 15 backward, and then raise the leg straight up and down 15 times all without resting the leg.  
4. Repeat for the other side.

If you are doing it correctly you will immediately feel it in your Glutes.  After a few days of teaching those guys how to work, start working on squats.  With a flat back, drop into a good squat, SQUEEZE your butt, and come back up.  It is different for each person, but after a while those glutes should start firing with every squatting motion you make and HOORAY! you have achieved (better) balance.

I encourage you to give it a try yourself, and let me know how it works.  You can either comment here on the blog or e-mail me at tom@canyonptandf.com.  And because blogs with photos seem to get more attention I have, for your enjoyment, included a picture of my research assistant Matilda's favorite toy, "The Ferret!"  Enjoy!