Reducing back pain through exercise, clearing hurdles, a quick core workout

Live healthier, for longer

Jan 29, 2025

Read time: 3 minutes

Food for thought:

According to this study, living a sedentary lifestyle (defined as below 600 MET min/week), nearly doubles your risk for back pain.

A few things to clarify related to the visual below:

-nsLBP stands for “non-specific low back pain” (pain in your lower back that can’t be traced to a specific cause)

-600 MET min/week is the equivalent of walking 4 miles per hour for 20 minutes per day, 6 days per week.

A question to make you think

What’s the single biggest hurdle standing between you and better health?
Why aren’t you doing everything in your power to clear this hurdle?

A quick workout

Three-sided planks

Not fancy.
Plenty effective, though.

Here’s the drill:

You’ve got 4.5 minutes of work here.

First 30 seconds: Start in a middle plank (elbows and forearms on ground, toes on ground, balanced in a static position with a flat back)
Next 30: plank on your right side (right elbow and forearm on ground, outside of right foot on ground with left foot on top, balanced in a static position with straight spinal alignment)
Next 30: plank on your left side (same as right side but on your left)

Repeat this for 3 rounds!

Don’t do it if:

If your low back starts to hurt, take a pause.
Our goal here is to work your abdominal muscles, not your back.

Adaptation:

Knee planks: if balancing on your forearms and feet is too difficult (or hurts), shift from your feet to your knees.
This decreases the downward force your body has to resist, making the exercise easier and injury less likely.

Tried the exercise?
Reply here and let me know how it went!

That’s all for this Wednesday.
See you on Saturday.
Have fun out there.

Marcus