Let's talk about your spine stability

Back pain is one of the most common issues I encounter every day in my clinic. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, each of us has a 70-90% chance of developing back pain in our lifetime. Pretty depressing odds, if you ask me, but before you start searching Google for cute puppy videos to cheer yourself up, please bear with me for a minute so I can show you an easy and effective way to improve your spine.

The topic I would like to discuss in this article is spinal stability. Spinal stability is a qualitative measure of how resilient the spine is when placed under loads. It is achieved by actively stiffening the spine on demand. The best method to maximise spinal stability is called abdominal bracing. The idea is to consciously activate all your core stability muscles and a few specific torso muscles simultaneously. This stiffens the spine and stabilises all the vertebral segments in our spine, which in turn prevents unwanted slips (micro-movements) that can lead to disc damage and ultimately back pain. Watch the video below for further explanation of abdominal bracing and a demonstration on how to perform it correctly.

Many people are taught how to activate their core muscles in different ways from a variety of teachers and health professionals, unfortunately not all methods of turning on the core muscles are equally effective. One such method is turning on the transverse abdominis, which is the deepest of all the abdominal wall muscles, and a very important component of core stability. However, what a lot of trainers don’t realise is that it is impossible to turn on a single muscle in isolation, so the theory is doomed to fail from the start.

Another ill-advised method is called abdominal hollowing; it is commonly taught by some (not all) coaches, instructors, and health professionals. It involves tensing up the abdominal muscles while drawing your navel inward toward your spine. The problem with abdominal hallowing is that it is not as effective at getting all the core muscles to turn on simultaneously and maximally. Dr Stu McGill (a prominent low back pain researcher from Canada) demonstrated that abdominal hollowing reduces the potential energy of the spinal column causing it to fail at lower applied loads (McGill, 2009), which proves that abdominal hollowing is not as effective as the abdominal brace when it comes to maximising spinal stability.

Think of spinal stability not as the ability to balance on a gym ball, but as a method of stiffening the spine. Many adults end up with unstable (loose) spines due to a lack of core stabiliser muscle coordinated function. It is very common, and if left unattended it can lead to chronic back pain, so it is definitely something you want to address sooner rather than later. When we talk about stiffening the spine, we are talking about using several muscles of the torso (and if you want to get real geeky about it, the muscles include the rectus abdominis and the internal/external obliques, quadratus lumborum, latissimus dorsi and the back extensors of longissimus, ilioicostalis and multifidus). When all these muscles contract together, they provide impressive levels of spinal stability, even in unfit individuals. Obviously, with some modest training the levels of spinal stability can be improved even further. This is a great way to alleviate back pain in many individuals, particularly those suffering from intervertebral disc problems.

Recently, my partner suffered from back pain and she was taught abdominal hallowing by her Pilates instructor several years ago. I simply assumed that she had been taught how to perform abdominal bracing in her Pilates classes. It was not until I treated her and asked her to turn her core on, that I discovered she was doing it incorrectly. When I demonstrated to her how to properly perform abdominal bracing she was surprised at how much more force she could generate with her core when performing the abdominal brace versus her method of abdominal hollowing. From that day forward she started to notice a big improvement how her low back felt, simply by turning on her core stabilisers correctly using the abdominal brace.

If after reading this blog and watching the video, you are still unsure as to whether you are performing the abdominal brace correctly please feel free to contact me and we can arrange for an in-clinic assessment to observe and provide feedback on how to perform it properly.

Take care,

Adam