10 Myths About Lower Back Pain (LBP)

[VonMeister]

You know who doesn't do zercher squats. Max Shank. He does anabolic steroids. He uses fake weights when filming many of his lifts and stupid human tricks...but zercher squats...nah...except when he's selling them to fanbois looking for someone NEW!, EXCITING! and THE GREATEST EXERCISE SECRET NO ONE WILL TELL YOU! on the internet

 

[grapedrink]

I agree with you, squats and deadlifts are not rocket science, the movements are very simple to do. There are a few things to watch out for so we don't hurt ourselves, but for someone who just wants to build some protective strength, is not competitive or wishing to push personal limits it does not need hours of technical coaching. For someone who is really serious or competitive that's different. My chiropractor uses a strength coach for "legs day" training i.e heavy squats and deadlifts. As an aside Von Meister tells me squats and deadlifts are not leg exercises - whatever!

Qualification/certification matters for our health practitioners. Chiropractors need 5 years in Australia by government requirement. Physios are required to be qualified to be allowed to practice too. Massage therapists have some sort of certification. I can see the other side of things though - these sort of practitioners practice what I consider to be black art. Manual skill and intuition for understanding the patient/student is needed to be good at their profession. Sports coaching is very much in the black art realm. So I don't see it as necessarily surprising or bad that there is not always clear regulated certification for things such as strength training. Anyway I think its good you got a CSCS - that gives you some credibility in my books. I also consider my chiropractor to be supremely qualified at advising a man off the street like me on how to lift!

I don’t think anyone answered this question. Short answer: personal trainers can get certifications taking weekend classes while watching videos. That’s all you need to train people in a gym in the US.

Physical therapists, who help people recover from injuries, require a fair amount of schooling.

 

[VonMeister]

I don’t think anyone answered this question. Short answer: personal trainers can get certifications taking weekend classes while watching videos. That’s all you need to train people in a gym in the US.

Physical therapists, who help people recover from injuries, require a fair amount of schooling.

There is no one less qualified to teach people how to get strong than a physical therapist. It's just not what they do. They are more like range of motion post immobility therapists. Aside from that they are in the dark....so the make old people prance around with pink dumbbells and rubber bands while they wait to die.

There is absolutely zero formal training in strength and conditioning...aside from the Starting Strength Coaching credential which is tough as nails to get.... but brand specific. The other closest I would guess is the Crossfit Level 1 but it's more of an attendance certificate where they teach you how to do kipping pull ups and do lifts with terrible technique.

Proof of this is Mr J's idiot chiropractor thinks squats and deadlifts are "leg day".

 

[Mr J]

I don’t think anyone answered this question. Short answer: personal trainers can get certifications taking weekend classes while watching videos. That’s all you need to train people in a gym in the US.

Physical therapists, who help people recover from injuries, require a fair amount of schooling.

that sounds right from a quick google on the personal training situation in the US. Physiotherapists in Aus need a degree in that subject to practice.

 

[Mr J]

Von Meister, whenever I remember that you told me that squats and deadlifts were not leg exercise it always amuses me. Yes, I know you told me that squats are a hip flexor exercise. Personally I think bulgarian split squats and lunges are better hip flexor exercises - I am not changing my mind on that.

If one of your disciples could explain why you are right and I am wrong that would be great.

 

[Mr J]

that sounds right from a quick google on the personal training situation in the US. Physiotherapists in Aus need a degree in that subject to practice.

just talking to myself ... CSCS seems more rigorous than plain personal trainer. With related degree AND experience, certification can be achieved in 3-6 weeks. Without either of those 6-9 months.

How to Prepare for the CSCS Exam (nsca.com)

 

[PRCD]

There is no one less qualified to teach people how to get strong than a physical therapist. It's just not what they do. They are more like range of motion post immobility therapists. Aside from that they are in the dark....so the make old people prance around with pink dumbbells and rubber bands while they wait to die.

But I'm prancing around with pink dumbbells and rubber bands while I wait to die.

 

[SurfFuerteventura]

Having lower back pain for the first time ever this past week. Do I have to read all 56 pages of this thread or can someone sum it up for me?

Tweeked it slightly while surfing and then long plane ride followed by carrying board bags and backpacks probably half a mile to car followed by hour and a half drive home from the airport. Been pretty buggered up since. Never had lower back pain before in my life. Peaked on Tuesday and ever so slightly better every day since.

Use a luggage trolley next time,
Save your back for important stuff.
Like shtupping the missus

 

[VonMeister]

Von Meister, whenever I remember that you told me that squats and deadlifts were not leg exercise it always amuses me. Yes, I know you told me that squats are a hip flexor exercise. Personally I think bulgarian split squats and lunges are better hip flexor exercises - I am not changing my mind on that.

If one of your disciples could explain why you are right and I am wrong that would be great.

Because I'm always right about these things.

....and I never said squats were just a hip flexor exercise.

You are likely as strong as an average middle age woman. Why on earth would you be doing split squats and lunges?

 

[PRCD]

Because I'm always right about these things.

....and I never said squats were just a hip flexor exercise.

You are likely as strong as an average middle age woman. Why on earth would you be doing split squats and lunges?

I did some of KOTG's deep split squats 5 x 20 and yesterday when I high-bar squatted it really helped me feel get the last bit of knee and ankle flexion that I'd been missing to engage the lower quads and get the "good morning" out of the movement.

This other book I have provides some well-cited sources on changing exercises to benefit hypertrophy, including single-leg exercises (consider why mirror box therapy works, for example). In SS, Rip uses mechanical engineering principles to explain why hypertrophy is good for strength: it gives you more leverage over the joint surface.

 

[PRCD]

One more reason why I think some exercises work better than others: work = force x distance. If I can maximize the distance a muscle contracts (to a point), I'm doing more work with it. Different fibers have different connection points requiring different lines of drive to maximize the distance over which they contract. For example, changing lines-of-drive and the angle with a different exercise can target the clavicular branch of the pectoralis major better than the sternal branch. This agrees with basic physics (kinematics).

 

[VonMeister]

I did some of KOTG's deep split squats 5 x 20 and yesterday when I high-bar squatted it really helped me feel get the last bit of knee and ankle flexion that I'd been missing to engage the lower quads and get the "good morning" out of the movement.

This other book I have provides some well-cited sources on changing exercises to benefit hypertrophy, including single-leg exercises (consider why mirror box therapy works, for example). In SS, Rip uses mechanical engineering principles to explain why hypertrophy is good for strength: it gives you more leverage over the joint surface.

Hypertrophy and strength aren't exclusive and I agree that at some point a hypertrophy program makes sense if a trainee has become stuck or regressed and other options haven't made reasonable changes. This program could be physical, mental or a combination of both. I use them over 6-8 week periods myself when I want to take a break from grinding, need a change f pace, or want to cut after a particularly hard training cycle where it's necessary for body fat percentages to climb a bit.

Hypertrophy happens at near failure to failure. It's not driven by rep ranges or higher reps. Again this is individualized based on the persons training response. However, it's safe to say that a set that takes two reps to get to failure is not going to drive a very large hypertrophy response.

For general strength and conditioning...exercise variation from the compound lifts is more helpful in keeping things interesting than causing some specific strength or hypertrophy adaptions. You can get more hypertrophy then you will ever need from the basic compound lifts. If you are into body building or other forms of male body fetishes than isolation exercises performed to failure do have their place.

 

[VonMeister]

One more reason why I think some exercises work better than others: work = force x distance. If I can maximize the distance a muscle contracts (to a point), I'm doing more work with it. Different fibers have different connection points requiring different lines of drive to maximize the distance over which they contract. For example, changing lines-of-drive and the angle with a different exercise can target the clavicular branch of the pectoralis major better than the sternal branch. This agrees with basic physics (kinematics).

This is mostly false. You can hyper stretch muscles beyond the point of training usefulness. If you aren't getting maximum useful training stress from a compound lift you aren't doing them correctly. Also, training stress isn't a response to range of motion. It's a response to muscle fatigue and the process the body uses to recover. We maximize this stress equating to parallel, deadlifting to lock out, and performing the presses. You can make it harder by going past the limit of usefulness, but it's just harder due to the mechanical disadvantage which results in actually less muscle fiber recruitment . It doesn't add training stress.

It's like Chachkis love of rotational training. He believes, falsely, that rotating provides a different muscle contraction that not rotating, which is false. Muscles contract and release and rotating during this contraction doesn't add additional training stress and likely lessons it due to the mechanical disadvantage. He thinks he's getting stronger because he's stupid and able to do this silly bullshit better than the day/week/month before...but this is because he's getting better at doing it (practice) and the training stress/adaptation is likely minimal depending on his previous degree of strength and sensitivity to train stress (genetics).

 

[PRCD]

Hypertrophy and strength aren't exclusive and I agree that at some point a hypertrophy program makes sense if a trainee has become stuck or regressed and other options haven't made reasonable changes. This program could be physical, mental or a combination of both. I use them over 6-8 week periods myself when I want to take a break from grinding, need a change f pace, or want to cut after a particularly hard training cycle where it's necessary for body fat percentages to climb a bit.

Hypertrophy happens at near failure to failure. It's not driven by rep ranges or higher reps. Again this is individualized based on the persons training response. However, it's safe to say that a set that takes two reps to get to failure is not going to drive a very large hypertrophy response.

Do you agree with this?

The "Hypertrophy Rep Range" – Fact or Fiction? • Stronger by Science

Is there a hypertrophy range of 6-15 reps per set that will net you more muscle growth? Let's look at this question both scientifically and practically.

www.strongerbyscience.com

Doesn't volume affect hypertrophy as well? I remember the HIT crew said you only needed one set to failure to stimulate hypertrophy, and I thought this was proven wrong (also Mentzer was loaded on gear). If that's the case, don't you need to train at higher ranges simply to increase volume? I mean, it would take forever to do 100 reps for legs in low rep range sets.

For general strength and conditioning...exercise variation from the compound lifts is more helpful in keeping things interesting than causing some specific strength or hypertrophy adaptions. You can get more hypertrophy then you will ever need from the basic compound lifts.

I would have to try this. I added 2" to my chest in a year, finally started growing my quadz and went up a shirt size using bodybuilding movements rather than compound lifts. It's safe to say I did minimal compound lifts this year. I varied rep ranges and exercises quite a bit.

 

[PRCD]

This is mostly false. You can hyper stretch muscles beyond the point of training usefulness. If you aren't getting maximum useful training stress from a compound lift you aren't doing them correctly. Also, training stress isn't a response to range of motion. It's a response to muscle fatigue and the process the body uses to recover. We maximize this stress equating to parallel, deadlifting to lock out, and performing the presses. You can make it harder by going past the limit of usefulness, but it's just harder due to the mechanical disadvantage which results in actually less muscle fiber recruitment . It doesn't add training stress.

I'm not talking about going beyond the useful range of motion of a muscle. I meant, "Use an exercise that maximizes travel within a useful range of motion." This is also only one term in the work equation, which is really an integral of the vector of force over the distance. In other words, the force and direction the force can be maximal for a certain set of fibers with one exercise instead of another. For example, incline dumbbell press will recruit more clavicular fibers of the pectoralis major simply because those are better able to apply force in that direction. At a basic level, different muscles operate different levers composed of limbs and joints. The direction of the force of the muscle relative to their attachments greatly affects the leverage and the stimulus. Do you agree?

 

[VonMeister]

I get what your saying....for a hypertrophy based program you want to use full range of motion. I agree. While I'm not against using dumbbells for a press, I think when you do you are very prone to training and over use injuries

One of the biggest mistake in training is trying to focus attention onto secondary (for lack of a better term) muscles. There's no reason to try and focus attention off the pectorals major onto other muscles. Your body is a system. You're much better off using it the way it was designed to be used. The dumbest people in the world are the ones who recommend exercises for the rotator cuff...and then over load these small muscles which usually results in injury over time. if they would bench and press they would strengthen the shoulder as a unit and be much better off.

My personal belief is that there are three useful ways to train.

1) Maximal Strength, .....a 1RM
2) Speed-Strength..... high velocity force production
3) Strength-endurance, .....he ability to produce force submaximally for an extended amount of time

If you rotate programs, or build them with the correct complexity the rest of the things you are looking for will come.

 

[PRCD]

I get what your saying....for a hypertrophy based program you want to use full range of motion. I agree. While I'm not against using dumbbells for a press, I think when you do you are very prone to training and over use injuries

One of the biggest mistake in training is trying to focus attention onto secondary (for lack of a better term) muscles. There's no reason to try and focus attention off the pectorals major onto other muscles. Your body is a system. You're much better off using it the way it was designed to be used. The dumbest people in the world are the ones who recommend exercises for the rotator cuff...and then over load these small muscles which usually results in injury over time. if they would bench and press they would strengthen the shoulder as a unit and be much better off.

My personal belief is that there are three useful ways to train.

1) Maximal Strength, .....a 1RM
2) Speed-Strength..... high velocity force production
3) Strength-endurance, .....he ability to produce force submaximally for an extended amount of time

If you rotate programs, or build them with the correct complexity the rest of the things you are looking for will come.

Thanks a lot. To be clear, I am not trying to badger you. I think you're the most knowledgeable guy I've encountered on strength and conditioning. If you ever write a book, I will definitely buy it. I understand if you won't though because people absolutely refuse to read these days. Until then, I guess I'll have to buy the JTRS book when I finish several other books on other topics.

I wish Greg Griffin would write a book too.

On more thought. I was comparing the traditional understanding of rep ranges and their effects to the later scientific findings. The old guys actually came up with a pretty-good first-order model through trial and error. Sure, all rep ranges produce hypertrophy but you need volume and who wants to spend all day trying to get volume from low-rep sets? Their model was also therefore quite practical for the effects they wanted.

 

[Havoc]

PRCD, what did u do to get ur upper chest to grow?

i need to go up a size in my clothes. i don't really look bigger but none of my hipster slim fit chit fitz me anymore.

 

[Havoc]

also, jeff nippard has some interesting evidence based work out there. smart duuu whoz pretty darn jacked.

 

[Mr J]

Because I'm always right about these things.

....and I never said squats were just a hip flexor exercise.

You are likely as strong as an average middle age woman. Why on earth would you be doing split squats and lunges?

The average Australian middle age woman is a fair bigger than me, wouldn't surprise me if they were stronger LOL.

You told me that I was stupid for saying that squats were a leg exercise. You also told me that squats were the best hip flexor exercise. Anyway lets put your incredible statements aside for now and discuss your question.

My answer is that ever since I took up skimboarding a bit over a year ago I have been prone to getting sore hip flexors. Skimming alone doesn't seem to be a problem, it appears to be a combination of surfing and swimming done on the same and consecutive days that causes the DOMS. The reason I believe is because I use a lot of leg kick to get into waves - I remember when I was doing some triathlon squad training (a long time ago) I was always rather pathetic at swimming, but I beat everyone in a kickboard only race (which shocked me), so it makes sense for me to catch waves using a fair bit of hip flexor effort. The problem with skimboard appears to be the step on where I run briskly for a short distance and simultaneously push with my left leg and step on the tail with my right. This is a mongo run and drop which would be extremely dodgy on a skateboard, but is considered the norm for skimming. Anyway the left leg is pushing and extended behind me and quickly needs to swing forwards on to the front of the board and this seems to give my hip flexor grief when it has already had some work from surfing.

So I am working on the theory that some hip flexor strength training will help protect me against DOMS in that region and maybe keep overuse injuries away too. Reasonable or not?

Both bulgarian split squats or lunges done with a very light weight (or no weight) seem to work my hip flexors hard. The light weight means I can distribute a fair bit of body weight on to the leg behind me and work that flexor. A heavy weight does not seem to be as effective or at least not give me the same control, because the flexor is quite weak compared to the stronger quads and glutes and a heavy weight forces me to use my front leg more. With light or no weight I can do a controlled slow decline (for eccentric benefit) and also do an isometric pause at the bottom without killing myelf.