Back pain steals your freedom. Core connection and healthy movement. Bring it back. So before we get started, I want you to strap your walking shoes on. Or better yet, no shoes at all. Grab your headphones and get your body moving while you listen to the insights that helped me climb out of a decade long struggle of debilitating lower back pain and led to the creation of Core Balance Training, which has helped thousands of people climb out of the back pain spiral for good. Welcome to the Back Pain podcast by Core Balance, where we share practical insights to address back pain at its root. I'm your host, Doctor Ryan Peebles, doctor of physical Therapy, specializing in spine and core rehabilitation. Each episode brings you a recording of one of my live sessions with my students. We start with a focused topic on back pain, then move into a live Q&A where I answered real questions in real time. My hope is that these episodes get you on the path to climbing out of the back pain spiral for yourself so you can live life the way that you want to. Let's dive in. This week's topic is going to be about the effectiveness of training the deep core for improving performance. I have a story that I can relate to you, and then we will apply the story with research and back it up with research about the effectiveness of training, the deep core, and how it can improve not only your spine and your lower back and the support of your axial skeleton, but also improve the performance of all your other muscles and speed and strength and all kinds of other things. So looking forward to getting into that. And then we have a bunch of questions, probably more questions this week than any other week before. So I'm going to try and kind of moved quickly through them so that we can get through all of them. So why don't we get right into it? I'll start with the story. And it was a story I was told many years ago when I was doing just personal research into, uh, trying to heal back pain, to try and heal my own back. And it was well before I went to physical therapy school, but I was doing lots of research just on the internet and anywhere I could find. So I was told a story about an NFL team in the off season, and some of the players were offered to do some core stability training, and other players opted out, and they wanted to stick with the normal training regimen, which was, you know, lifting heavy weights, strength training, power, muscle training. And so the team was kind of split into two categories. the one category that focused on core training and specifically core stability. So the deeper muscles of the core and the other group who could be like the control group who did the normal training. And when it came to the end of the off season, you have your tests, you know, your agility tests, your speed tests and strength tests. And it turned out that the the group that focused on core stability training had larger gains in performance compared with the group that had that focused on strength and power training. And so that for me, in my journey, it perked my ears up. It was a moment that I still remember when I said, wow, there's something to this core stability thing. And I think that was pivotal for me to go and dive deeper into my research in that area, for myself, to heal my own back. And there was another study that I remember finding after I went diving deeper that talked about the highest level athletes in the world, the superstars. And it mentioned something that was that differentiated them, that separated them from normal athletes or even good athletes. There was something about these superstars that something happened in their core, and it didn't happen in regular or even good athletes. And what that was. It was the sequence of events, the sequence of firing patterns of the muscles. And in these superstar athletes, the very first muscle group that fired was a contraction of the pelvic floor and the other muscles that are closest to the spine. Those were the first muscles to fire in the sequence of events before any other muscle in the body came on. So if you're talking about someone who's a sprinter right off the line, you know the first thing that happens before they go into a stride is a deep core connection. Or, you know, a pelvic floor muscle was the very first thing, and then the leg muscles, the power muscles, the movement muscles came on. And so those were just two interesting things that I wanted to share. And now I want to go into a more recent study. You know, these are these are stories. You know, the first thing was a story is, is just hearsay. And then, you know, this thing about premier athletes, this was a study that I found, and I don't have that one for you today, but I do have a study from twenty twenty two, I believe, and this will help to support these types of stories that I'm telling. So as I've shared before in previous live streams, this is a systematic review. And what a systematic review is. It's the highest quality of study. And what they do is they take a ton of other studies and they look for similarities. They analyze lots of studies from the past, so they take the highest quality single studies, which are randomized controlled trials, and they collect them and analyze them and provide a review of the outcomes of similar outcomes. So this particular systematic review took eighty eight studies over the years and came up with some conclusions based on these eighty eight studies that were all surrounding the topic of the effect of core training on skill performance among athletes. And so I consider this to be a really high quality, as high of a quality form of evidence that you can find. And so we'll just just read through the, the overview and, and that's it. I'm not going to get too deep into the literature, but it says this study aims to present a critical review of the existing literature on the effect of core training on athletes skill performance, and to provide recommendations and suggest future research directions for both coaches and researchers. So we're going to skip over the data. Actually, what I read was eighty eight. It looks like they took one hundred and nineteen studies. And they had certain criteria, called inclusion criteria, that the studies had to meet to be selected. And only sixteen of them met that criteria. So this was screened heavily for consistency and to remove bias, which is the main goal of of research is to remove bias and have, you know, clear outcomes. So here's the results. It says core training could potentially improve skill performance among football, handball, basketball, swimming, dancing, karate, Muay Thai, gymnastics, volleyball, badminton and golf players. And so it's a it's the conclusion that they came up with. And that's not surprising. You would imagine that training your core could improve performance. Right. And but what I'm mostly interested in is, is this conclusion which kind of talks about why maybe theoretical reasons why this is so effective. And so it says compared with the traditional training methods, core training is a new strength training method, Strong core muscles function as hubs in the biological motor chain, so this is important in the biological motor chain, which create a fulcrum for the fore limbs strength and establish a channel for cohesion, transmission and integration of upper and lower limbs. So basically the the limbs are pulling on the axial skeleton. And the strong core muscles allow that axial skeleton to be a strong foundation for these levers to pull on. And if the foundation is not, you know, solid, then as the levers pull them, then there will be give. And that give is a reduction in performance. It leads to friction and it also leads to wasted energy. And so this is really what I am focused on when when we talk about creating core stability. It's creating that solid foundation for your limbs to pull on. And so those limbs, you know, that give over time. That repetitive giving of the spine doesn't lead to repetitive trauma and friction. We want that foundation to be solid. So it says, in other words, core training optimizes the transfer and overall control of motion and force to the to the terminal segment within athletic actions. So to the limbs, essentially. Meanwhile, core training could increase stability and stiffness in the spine to reduce unrequired energy leaks and torso movement during the exertion of external loads so it protects your back. Essentially, this mechanism could help athletes achieve better skill performance. Therefore, this review suggests that core training should be considered integrated into athletes daily training routines, and this entire topic was actually inspired by a by a student post. And I don't know if you were here last week, but I shared a post by a student, a comment in the in the lessons in the Core Balance training program by a student named Shane, who told a story of how he has had a long journey with back pain, and he recently discovered that he could sit up from a laying down position. And he hasn't been able to do that for many years. And it was really significant change for him because years ago, after the loss of the ability to sit up from a from like a supine position or laying down on his back or even on a, I think in his story It was on a workout bench. After the loss of that ability, he tried many things to gain that back because that's very important to be able to sit up, right. And nothing was working and it was potentially causing more problems. And so after completing the beginning portion of this program, he realized that he was able to do this again. And this wasn't even really what he was training for and was very significant. He mentioned that there were tears involved. Tears of joy. And we talked about that last week. So you can go back and and see that post, which I read on the stream last week. And so I responded on the stream and he he responded again, saying that he's still trying to figure this out. How this makes sense? How could training the deep core, these small muscles that are not even responsible for movement. Improve his ability, his functional ability to do something like that. And so that's where the topic of this stream came in. I will share with you his actual follow up post. So it says from Shane. He says, I will certainly keep going. I can't wait to see what happens over the next couple of months. I'm still scratching my head on this one, trying to figure out why I'm suddenly able to sit up from lying down without rolling onto my side after only one week. So I guess he was only in the program for one week at this point. And if you've done the program, you'll know that the first week is very gentle, very subtle. We don't do much, and we actually have one of the main feedback that we get from not not commonly, but some students that like to go hard and do a lot is that they want to do more. And one of the main challenges of this program is to get people to do less and focus on the deep stuff in the beginning. So. So it's just that one week, you know, there's not a whole lot happening. So it's been pretty surprising to him that something like that could make a major shift in his functional abilities. Shane says something about the back anchor, the get fat concept, and practicing the perfect bridge and the marching progression with the back anchor somehow built a road map from my brain to a part of my core that I had forgotten how to use. I truly thought I was broken, and the only abdominal exercises I had done that were safe for my diastasis, which is a kind of a separation of some abdominal tissues. Before finding your program, were planks and single leg marches. I'm going to try to make the lessons from module one a part of my daily routine for the rest of my life. I do have something to say about that, but we'll keep reading. Something in that module woke up a part of my core that has been shut down for I don't know how long. Thanks again. So just want to say thank you to Shane for sharing. And yeah, I want to you know, this ties back into the topic of the stream. So Shane, if you're watching this and you haven't seen the beginning of the stream, I kind of hope that the story I tell and the research that that backs that up can help explain why strengthening stability muscles in your core that don't actually provide movement can improve the function of the power muscles. Because all these power muscles are is just they are just levers pulling on a fulcrum. And the stronger the fulcrum is, the more solid that fulcrum is, the more effective they are at doing their job. And so that's what we do in the program, is we strengthen the foundation. We strengthen the the fulcrum for physics to work better, for levers to pull better. And, and there's different types of levers in the body, but all of them work better when they are connected to a solid foundation. So hopefully that helps explain it. Shane, thank you so much for sharing. I'm glad to hear about your progress. And I do want to say about this comment. So he wants to do module one for the rest of his life. Shane. So that is not a bad idea. And at the same time, the way that this program is designed is that it's a progression of layers that are built on, uh, the previous layer from before it. And so when you get to module two, three, four, five, etc., we don't leave behind module one. We just add another layer to it. And so by performing the functional movements in module five, for example, with the connection to your back anchor, you are getting the benefit of the back anchor from module one plus more. And so you may not need to do module one for the rest of your life. You may just, you know, by the end of the program, uh, what we're doing is we're just moving through daily life in a healthy way. And so it turns those movements of daily life, whether you're cleaning the house or doing yard work or whatever, into movements that are healthy for your body and maintain your core stability and strength because you're connecting to the anchors, it's the ultimate layer to to turn normal life into the maintenance of your body. And so while it's always good to revisit the floor and connect to your anchors and kind of reset your Or system. You know, your, your neuromuscular system to, to reconnect to those areas. You know periodically you may not need to do it every day of your life because hopefully you've integrated these connections into your daily movement. And that is what keeps you healthy. So but I would never want to stop you from, you know, connecting to your core and committing to your body. So do what's best for you at the same time. So that is kind of the the topic for this week. And we're going to get into student Q&A. But first, we do have a new kind of tradition on the weekly streams where we share, uh, featured student for the week. And so we'll share the featured student, and then we'll get through a bunch of questions from this past week that were posted in the lesson comments. So the student of the week, The featured student this week is Debbie and she just finished the program. And as you may already know, we send some questions to anyone that completes the program. There's four or five questions that we ask, and these are her responses to those questions. She says, yes, I have experienced decreased back pain. I was able to stick with the program. And I think your approach is genius. I have a PT Mason law. He went to school with you and many other programs, but haven't stuck with anything the way I have this. The amount of time required, the daily emails, the ways you can incorporate it into your life all help. Yes, I believe I have improved my body awareness and core connection. I do believe the benefits will last because I know what to do to maintain them. I found the simple thoughts of connecting my ribs to my pubic bone. Pressing my low ribs back into my Camelbak, which is new. A new thing that I have not heard before, but I love it. And breathing into my low back and feeling it decompress and leading with my pubic bone. Great. As well as active stretching. I love bridge. Me too. Debbie. We have that in common, I love it. And that's probably the one I do most often before any kind of high level activity, like surfing, just to get my body ready. She says, thank you so much. Debbie and I have recommended your program to many people. I just want to say thank you, Debbie. And I want to honor you for the commitment you made to your body, and for taking responsibility for your health and putting in the work day after day, even if it's just a little bit of work. You know, with this program, it's fifteen minutes a day and Just that over a period of three months. If you can stick with it, day by day can be lead to extremely powerful change. But the hardest part is the daily commitment. And so anyone that completes this program is, you know, deserves the credit for the progress that they've made. And and so I just want to, you know, it's a very commendable thing, Debbie, that you were able to stick with the program and you committed to your body from the beginning all the way through. And I think you you stuck with it every single day. And I'm proud of you and thank you for sharing. And I also want to mention that Mason law, your PT is, was my classmate in physical therapy school, and I remember him very well. He was one of the nicest students in the entire class. And that's awesome that you we we both know Mason and and you have you had kind of two points from from the same class. It's kind of a small world thing. So that's really cool. And please say hello to Mason for me. I, I'm sure I worked with him on a number of different, you know, like what we do in, in physical therapy schools, a lot of hands on work with our classmates. And I'm sure I was partnered up with him a few times and always enjoyed it. So say hello for me. And yeah, you've got a great PT there in I believe, Utah, so stick with Mason if you still have any PT needs. He's a good one. All right, let's get on to our questions. This is from James and this is posted in the Front Anchors awareness lesson. That's week two and I believe that's the day one of week two James says hi I'm enjoying the program so far. My progress has been amazing for just three weeks of work. I am, however, going very slowly now. My issues are one difficulty with front anchor progressions. Even the most basic pushing off from my anchors. And two I've got no bridge to speak of. My course starts solid but gets fatigued very quickly. I'm not sure if I'm trying too hard. Ten percent rule is foreign to me as I'm a former athlete. But I'm trying to embrace it. Or perhaps I just need far more time to strengthen my core. Thoughts are appreciated and thanks again for this program. Very helpful. So let's go back to number one. It says difficulty with the front anchor progressions. So that's actually a later lesson in week two I think that is day four I believe. And and you said even the most basic like pushing off from my anchors. So that is not uncommon. James I think if there was a most a lesson that students had the most difficulty with, it would be the front anchors awareness lesson. It's the introduction to the anchors on the front side of your body, and I believe it's it's not even comfortable for a lot of people to get into that position with. If our posture has gotten so curved, to be able to lay flat face down on the floor is not comfortable, and then to try and add pushing away and more extreme movements on top of that can seem extremely challenging to some people. So what I recommend for you, James, without knowing much about your physical past or or fitness level, when people have trouble with the front anchors, one of the most helpful things you can do is just get into the position and try to let your body relax into the position without trying to do any movements, without trying to turn it into an exercise. Just lay face down and breathe and feel your muscles kind of just melt into the floor and allow your posture to kind of mold to the floor, because what that's doing, the flat surface of the floor is straightening out. Your posture is the perfect postural kind of I don't know, I want to call it like a postural or something like a frame for your body to, to form to. That's what we developed. Forming to is the floor and pushing away. And it's also a great way for us to reset throughout our lives. Get down on the floor. So. So that's step one is just develop the ability to relax in that position. And a lot of that will be helped out by breathing and deep breaths and exhales, and that in itself can provide huge benefits. It's really important that you are comfortable in the position before you start adding more to it. So if you're not comfortable in the front anchor's position, then you start doing the push away. I don't believe you're going to get the benefits that you should be getting. I don't even think you'll get as many benefits as just laying there, breathing, relaxing. I think you'll get more benefits by doing that first, and then once you can gain that comfort in the position, then you can add the next layer, which is the pushing away. And you know, that's another conversation. So pushing away from your lower front anchor. I have gone through this on a live stream. I believe the stream is called How to Progress While in Back Pain. So if you find that stream, there's a chapter in there where I just walk you through how I would do the front anchors awareness if it was uncomfortable. And so that might be really helpful. And just for now, here, I'll say that you'll want to start with the most central muscles in your body. So your core, your abdominals and try and pull that pubic bone to the floor. And once you can connect the pubic bone, then you can start adding in other muscles to try and push away from it. But first you start with just getting that connection. And that can be a couple sessions in itself. It's just getting that connection. Be able to breathe and maintain that connection, then the push away. Ideally it would be the glutes that you bring in and and that helps the push away and and the legs. It will always be helpful if you kind of switch your intention from trying to lift anything, your legs or your upper body and switch that to pushing away from your anchors. The result of that, the fulcrum of the push away, will be that those body parts elevate on their own. They kind of float up off the floor as very subtle and as very gentle. It's it's not a lot of intensity with that. As you mentioned, the ten percent rule is difficult for you. So double down on that and try dropping down to two percent or even one percent. The you know, another rule in the program in general is if you feel like you're not doing enough, do less. And that's probably the issue is, if you feel like you should be doing more, then you're doing too much. And it's been pretty consistent across the board. That type of personality and people with that background of going hard do have a hard time with doing less. And so that's really going to be one of the challenges that will offer the most benefit. Let's get into number two. It says I've got no bridge to speak of. My course starts solid but gets fatigued very quickly. So in this situation, I wouldn't actually change anything except keep going and don't give up. Because when you have no strength and endurance in these muscles, all it means to me is that you have a massive room for improvement. And that's a good thing, because the more room for improvement you have with your your strength, endurance, and functional mobility. It also means you have more room for improvement with the reduction of pain and other symptoms related to that. So just keep going. Assuming you're, you know, following the the progress of module one, the progression of, you know, connecting the back anchor, pushing away to initiate the bridge, then bringing in the glutes to come up higher up Uh, assuming you're doing that, then just keep going and stick with it day after day. And that's how we build our body up is through repetition over time. So those are my tips for you. And it sounds like you're on the right track. And so I think the main thing you need is encouragement to keep going. And also a reminder to be patient and remember the ten percent rule that you can actually get more benefits by doing less in these early stages. And so there's not a direct relationship between trying harder and more benefits. It's a it's kind of an inverse relationship when we're talking about the deep core. So hopefully that helps. And let me know if you have any follow up questions that I can get back to you on. So we're going to move on to the next question here. This one's from Howard. This is on the front. Anchors challenge two. So that is module three. And we're somewhere around day three of that module. He says I notice that when I do the warm up front anchor routine and try to lift my legs, I start to feel a pinch in my left lower back even after the exercises. So my legs get so stiff in that position that I can barely even bend my knees. Lifting my legs in this warm up is really hard for me. Any light you can share on this is greatly appreciated. So I'm going to go ahead, Howard and highlight these words. Try to lift, especially just lift. This is an intention that we want to get away from. And I don't know if it's just the writing or if it's your actual intention when you're doing the exercise, but we want to shift away from trying to lift our legs and have no desire to lift our legs, if that helps. Hopefully that can be clear. Zero desire to lift our legs. And what we want to do is we want to instead push away from my anchors. Okay. And so this is what we want to try to do. And if the legs elevate, great. If they don't that's great too. I don't really have a preference whether they elevate or not. So it's not about the actual elevation that provides the benefit in these awareness exercises or in your case, the warm up. It's about the intention that provides the benefit we're training intention in into your neuromuscular system. We're training the firing pattern of your brain, saying, push away from here, trying to make that kind of a more default pattern. If you think about a software program, it becomes more of a default program than the the lifting intention, which fires different muscle groups and can lead to, you know, overuse of the lower back muscles, hyperactive lower back muscles and things like pinching. And so this is just really the main emphasis of my feedback to you is if we're talking about the lower front anchor pubic bone, push away and see what happens and don't have any intention that you're required to, or it's wrong if your legs don't lift up. They may float up. And if you push even harder away from your pubic bone with your glutes bringing in your glutes, they may come up an elevator kind of float off the ground. And so I would like you to try that. And hopefully there will be a reduction in the activity of your lower back muscles to generate that movement. And this is how we learned and developed as infants and babies. It was a push away intention. And so we're modeling after that. And it will help guide your body to use a more balanced approach to generate this kind of hip extension, rather than overusing our compensatory muscles, which tend to become our lower back muscles. Also, make sure you're doing the bridge before the front anchors awareness exercises just to help stretch out your hip flexors and and then get back to me and let me know if that helps. But yeah, always if you're having pain, reduce the intensity and go back to the basics and just really focus on what is your intention, is your intention to push away, then you're doing it right. Is your intention to lift your legs then? This is not the exercise that we're doing. We're more focused on the communication than the actual result of movement that occurs. And I know that's weird, and I know there's probably no other programs like that, but this is just what seems to work for us. So we're going to move on to the next one. This is from Lauren posted in the Breathing lesson. So that's day zero. The very first lesson that you see when you sign up for the free trial, she says breathing out is easy, but inhaling into the back the correct way is difficult for me, but I'm working on it. It's incredible how wrong I have been breathing. Yikes. And the reason I wanted to talk about this is not that there's a question here, but because of how Lauren, how you mentioned how you've been breathing wrong. And I've heard this before from students that, you know, when they're exposed to this breathing lesson, it makes them feel that they've been breathing wrong, like it's a choice and that, you know, there was some technique that got messed up, but really it's more of just a very gradual shift as our posture changes and we lose connection to our core. Maybe we spend a lot of time sitting and we work at an office setting. Then, you know, as the body shifts and the posture gradually changes because of that lifestyle, the the diaphragm, just gradually, if you can imagine, this is my diaphragm here and it's angled kind of downward like this. And it usually pushes downward. It just gradually starts to tilt forward over a period of years. And eventually it's pressing more forward out the abdomen. And so so it wasn't that. and it's not really wrong. It's just a shift of of the angle of the breathing. And and there was no point in time when it happened. It's just gradually got a little bit out of alignment. And so what we're doing is we're trying to overcorrect that imbalance by sending the breath back. And ultimately what the we want the diaphragm to do is to go back to breathing where it's pushing the pressure straight down. But we have to overcorrect to be able to get to that point. And so I didn't want you to feel like, uh, you know, you've been missing something or your body is broken or wrong. It's just a gradual evolution that tends to happen to us, and it's a pattern. So we're going to reverse that. And and there's a lot of progress that can come your way just by making that one change. So hope that helps and I hope that helps anyone else that sees this too. All right, so we've got two questions from Veena. The first one is back anchor awareness. That would be day one of the program. After the breathing lesson the next day she says, is it normal to feel tired holding this position? Tired is okay. Normal? It depends on the person. So really, there may be people that come into this program and this connection is easy for them and there's no problem. And there may be people that can't even make the connection because their body is so far away from what it used to be. And then there may be people in the middle kind of what you're experiencing, Veena, where it's you can do it, but it's tiring, and that's probably a pretty common place to be. So yeah, you could say it's normal, but it just depends on the person and your fitness level. So it's definitely okay to feel tired and is a good sign that you can. You have room for improvement to build up your endurance in your muscles, so keep practicing staying connected and breathing and that will offer you a lot of benefit to build up the endurance in these postural muscles that we need to be able to get to work all day long, because posture doesn't stop when we leave the gym. So next lesson is this is day two. So we're going right in order here. Day zero, day one and day two. Foundational concept. This is the push away concept that we apply throughout the program. It says can you also apply this to standing, pushing away from your feet to keep you from slouching while standing? So interestingly, yes, we do apply this to standing later in the program. I believe module five is when we get up off the floor and we start applying the core anchors in standing all three of them, and we call that the anchor triad. And and this over here, where my mouse is trying to go, is a is a picture of the anchor triad that we apply, and that is how we transition into standing. However, it's a little different than what you're saying here. So pushing away from your feet. Yeah. That's kind of a you know, that's a good thing to do. But what we're doing is more core centered. And so we're really focused on pushing away from our anchors. We're pushing away from that in the same direction you were, as if you were laying on the ground and standing and the front anchors as well. So so we just basically turn our body vertical, but we're still applying the same push away and the same direction as if we were laying on the floor. But yeah, pushing away from your feet is, you know, is applicable. Be like doing a squat essentially. and you definitely need to be able to do that to stand as well. But we're more focused on the posture of your body and the curvatures of your spine. Getting more just more supported by the muscles of your spine. And that's the focus of this program. Great question though. And you are you're on the right track with where we're going. We got another question coming through here from Kenneth. It says, oh no, it's not a question. It's a just a share in the hip hinge lesson. This is module five. We're in the middle of module five maybe day three. It says the end position here is similar to my address of the ball when I play golf. And so I as someone who does not play golf I don't know exactly what addressing the golf ball means, but I could imagine that it's when you are in the beginning, when you are coming forward to set up your initial setup of the swing. So yeah, I could see how that would be similar. And and I love I just wanted to bring this up because I love how you were applying this. And in your previous posts as well, it's it's apparent that you're applying this to your daily life and your, your sports and your hobbies. And this is the goal of the program. And I want other people to be doing this as well. So that is an inspiration to everyone is you know, Kenneth has been doing really well in the program, and part of the reason is because he's getting up off the floor from the daily routine and applying, integrating the concepts of the program to the rest of his daily life. So good job, Kenneth, and thank you for sharing. We got a question from Linda. And this is actually not a question either. This one is towards I think it's one of the last things in the program called the Maintenance Commitment, and I have the students at the end of the program kind of commit to maintaining their body. And so, she says the lessons have been very helpful, and I will continue to work on my daily routines as I walk, drive or work. I constantly think, push away or tilt my pelvis. My pain has not gone away, but hope if I continue on it will get better. Thank you for allowing me to be able to continue to review the lessons, and to go back and watch the live videos. I missed most Wednesdays due to work. I loved the bridge and do it even when I wake up in the middle of the night to help relieve the pain. Thank you for your guidance in helping me to learn about strong core strength. Linda. Thank you. Linda. I'm. I'm proud of you for making it through the program and for committing to your body. And when you mention that you still have pain, your pain has not gone away. I just wanted to let you know that that's okay. And and it's actually really, really quick for people to go from having many years of back pain to having no pain at all in a period of twelve weeks. And actually, in my case, where I had over ten years of back pain and I started applying these concepts to my body. It took me much longer than three months to get to the point where I had no pain. And so I just want you to know that this is okay and and normal and expected because we're reversing years of patterns that have developed. And so I, I love hearing that you're going to continue to stick with it. And I expect that you will continue to gain more progress. It seems like you have gained progress and benefits. And so just an encouragement to you, Linda, to keep going. Keep applying the concepts. Keep revisiting the floor and connecting to your core and applying them into your daily life, and more benefits will come your way. Maybe six months to a year. But the stuff that the progress that you make is lifelong. It will last with you as long as you keep applying them to your daily life movements. So thank you for sharing, and I just want to honor you for completing the program and also sticking with it afterwards. So we'll go on to the next question. We've got one from Steven and this is posted in the back anchor progression. This is day three of the program in the free trial. So we are continuing our streak of day zero now up through day three Steven says will this program help with my trigger points in my left side QL that's quadratus lumborum I'm having trouble breaking it up. My PT has me using a lacrosse ball to roll on it. It's very tender and I believe it's causing of my back pain while cycling. Okay, so this is a key word here for me. Dealing with this pain for six to eight years used to ride forty to sixty miles. Now it's ten miles only and in pain. So the reason cycling stands out to me is because the position of riding a bicycle is the same position of that are that our bodies are trending towards in the predictable pattern of muscle imbalances. That's bringing us towards the fetal position, and that's a position of protection. And so cycling is well, it's wonderful. And I actually have spent many years mountain biking. So same thing. It is training or exercising the body in the position that we are trying to reverse, and so that can make it hard to get out of the cycle when we're spending, especially our hours, many hours per week exercising in that position. And so what I recommend to people, especially if the pain is limiting their ability to ride, is to listen to that and maybe take a little bit of time off and be able to restore the posture and the muscular balance in the body and then reintroduce, you know, if you're an avid cyclist, it's your favorite activity. Introduce that gradually with the intention of staying connected to your core throughout the cycling, and take a new perspective on it with your body, because you can still cycle and have it be good for your body. But we kind of need to Rewire the way that your body relates to that exercise. And so you can do what I call core cycling, which is, you know, having your core be your center of movement, center of power, and all the pedaling and even the force that you're exerting through your arms is originating in your core. And then combining that with some counterbalancing exercises like cross training to reopen the posture back up before or and or after you get off the bike. So the bridge would be an excellent one, because in cycling your hips are very closed up and you're training your hip flexors in a closed position and we want to open them. And so the bridge can help you do that. So definitely after riding and even before doing the bridge. So let's get actually to your question, which was will the program help with trigger points in your left side QL muscle. So trigger points are a symptom of usually overexertion and kind of repetitive trauma. It's like electrical repetitive trauma in the muscles. And so yes, absolutely the the program without even touching the trigger points, without even rolling on it like, like you're doing with the lacrosse ball will help with trigger points throughout the body. Because what we do is we help bring in the supporting crew to do their job. So the QL muscle doesn't have to work so hard. It's a compensation when muscles develop trigger points, they're working too hard and there's too much, you know, electricity. And it actually gets piled up and it becomes stagnant. And this trigger point forms and you can actually stick a needle in there and and it releases instantly because it is electrical. So anyway, yes, the answer is yes. And with the QL, you know, the supporting muscles that we're bringing in are all the abdominal muscles, all four layers of them and the multifidi and all these deep muscles around the spine. They start doing more work in the QL can kind of let go a little bit and do less work. And, and it will be just a healthier muscle. And the trigger points can just gradually go away over time without even having to roll on them. And rolling on them can help, you know, be a catalyst for that process, too. So but the rolling in itself is not the solution, because the lack of rolling is not the cause. So we have to address the cause and the rolling can help, just as I said, be a catalyst to to eliminate them. And by addressing the cause, we're addressing them, not returning for that reason why they're there. So hopefully that helps. And yeah, I don't I don't really think I have too much more to say about that. Hopefully that also the tips about cycling is okay with you. I know how people get about their passion. You know, runners too is hard to stop doing something that essentially is, you know, your life passion. So but it can be very worth it. Let's move on to another one from Keith. This is under module one assessment. So the kind of an assessment we take at the end of the first two modules to make sure we're on the right track. Keith says the work has been very helpful so far. Question I've had disc herniations in the past and use McKenzie exercises. Can I continue to do those or do they conflict with these movements? I actually spoke about this, I think it was last week in the live stream. And actually McKenzie is potentially the one type of therapy that I know of that does a little bit conflict with our goal. And I'm assuming that's maybe why you asked Keith, because you can kind of sense that, you know, in this program, what we're doing is we're trying to neutralize the pelvis. And so if you look at the skeleton here, you know, we're trying to develop, you know, a neutral pelvis and the spine that sits on top of it and, and kind of lengthen the spine. And what Mackenzie's doing is it's exaggerating the backward bending of the spine by through repetitive extension. And it can be very helpful. It can be extremely effective for short term compressed nerve damage. So if a disc, a herniated disc is pressing on a nerve and you're getting sciatica, the the McKenzie repetitive extension can help move that disc material out of the way, so it's no longer pressing on the nerve and give you immediate relief. But beyond that, I personally don't believe there's a lot of effectiveness in the repetitive extension strategy for developing long term health of your spine. And so my recommendation and you should do what you believe in after doing your own research and talking to, you know, all of the experts that you have supporting you. But what I would recommend is use Mackenzie as needed. If you are having nerve related pain or nerve related symptoms to help reduce those symptoms, but beyond that, I think you'll be better off building up the support in your spine. And and that's kind of the opposite of repetitively taking it into an extreme range of motion. You want to we want to develop stability around the spine so that if you watch the beginning of this stream, the limbs, the arms and the legs can pull on it as the foundation or the, you know, the fulcrum of these levers without compromising it. We want a solid axial skeleton, a solid center, rather than one that is trained to do a certain movement repetitively. So that's my recommendation. But at the same time, the stuff you're doing in this program should be helpful no matter what. And in congruence with all the other things that you're doing, they should still help. It just may happen at a little bit of a slower pace. If the other things that you're doing are reversing the the what we're trying to do. So hopefully that helps. We've got one from Brad. Okay. This is actually a conversation that I had with Brad. So Brad, you say not related to this exercise, but my bottom vertebrae L5 keeps rotating to the right. A chiropractic adjustment can release it back straight. But I'd like to know what to do to stop it from rotating. And this is the type of question that I want you to be asking. So good on you, Brad, for, you know, we want to get to the the cause. We want to go upstream from whatever symptoms, signs and symptoms we're having and stop it, you know, upstream so that it doesn't happen again. And so the questions I asked Brad were, you know, how do you know it's rotating. Can you feel it when at the moment it happens the the moment the rotation happens. And what activities cause are you aware of that. cause it? And are you doing anything after you get it adjusted to help stabilize the adjustment so that it stays in place? Because that's really what we want. We don't want to have to continue going back and getting more adjustments. We want the adjustment to to last. And that can only happen if we're changing something about our body to help it last and addressing the cause so that it so whatever has been causing it is no longer a factor. So let's go ahead and read his response to my questions. It says that's according to my chiropractor's opinion. I have not had a second opinion. I do feel it immediately. It usually happens as a result of or at least with significant muscle tightening response. It seems to happen after physical activity. I've been trying to slowly increase activity and it seems to happen if I increase the activity a little too fast. The last time it happened was after a one and a half walk. I was only going one mile. It has also happened twice during prolonged sitting. I can't say one specific move or then if I do a rotating twisting type stretch, it will often pop. The chiropractor says that's not a problem. I'm not so sure. I have not done any stabilization exercises but would be very willing. I did have a significant improvement about a month ago, but that didn't last. Is this something that will usually will heal and go away? What types of stabilizing exercises should I do? Thank you for your input and for your help. He also says I've also had it tightened prior to sleeping and when I wake up, it has rotated during the night. So I'd like to give kind of my overall view on what might be happening, Brad. And then we'll dive deeper. So there are cases where a single vertebrae will rotate or get out of alignment with the rest of the vertebrae. And I don't see that it's actually like a mechanical malfunction of of of any specific body part or anatomy, more so that it's just the beginning signs of breakdown of spinal support and stability. I've seen patients who have had several vertebrae rotated in different directions, and they're not even necessarily adjacent to each other, but maybe the L5 is rotated this way and the vertebrae up, this L2 is rotated the other way and and up the spine as you go. You can see that there's just a lot of misalignment of the spine, and that it just doesn't look very good. There's no real like pattern, except that the that it's not in alignment. And I think that that makes the most sense to be to me, what could be happening to you is that you're not having a mechanical problem that's pulling your vertebrae out of alignment. It's just that your spine doesn't have enough support, support to stay in alignment. And you know, when things start to go, you know, it's just little shifts like that. And and if the process were to continue happening and progressing, then it might happen to another vertebrae. And so what we want to do is we want to give your spine more support. And I've seen the changes in patients profound changes in spinal alignment simply by Building a general sense of fitness in the body. You know, getting the body more fit and the spine just kind of realigned itself without chiropractic adjustments. So that's thought number one broad. And thought number two that I think is really significant is when you have a rotation in your spine or or a shift in your spine, there are other types of shifts, such as a spondylolisthesis where it shifts forward. It's an inherent instability of the spine. And that's what you can assume that there is an instability of the spine. And when you adjust or manipulate an instability, you're actually contributing more to the instability because you're applying a force to something that's unstable, making it potentially a little more unstable. You could think about any any really structural thing, whether it's biological or not. You know, if you have a broken bone and that means it's unstable, you don't necessarily you don't typically apply force to adjust the bone unless it's out of alignment. You want it to get back in alignment and then you cast it. And so that's what we would want to do with with your spine is get it back in alignment and then keep it there. But if we get it back in alignment and then it comes out of alignment, and then we push it back in and out and in and out, we are just creating more instability. And so there's a strategy that I can recommend. And it's going to be very long term. And it's not going to be easy. But it's comprehensive and it's going to involve if you want to if you choose to to get it brought back in alignment by a practitioner. You can do that. But immediately after that, you want to do a series of core stabilization exercises that you know from your past experiences don't trigger the rotation. And so whatever you know from your experience, that is turns on the core muscles but doesn't trigger the rotation. Do those. Maybe it's some of the stuff from the program. Maybe it's module one back anchor stuff. Maybe it's the plank core stability stuff. And then the hardest part for you is going to be activity modification. So you need to learn from your past. Reflect on what you've learned from this, all these experiences you've had with this, and avoid the activities that would bring it out of place and do more of the activities that help it stay in place and try and extend the length of time between the last adjustment and the next one. So if normally you get an adjustment, say, every one month, then you want to make it so you can get one, you know, six weeks apart and then do the same thing again to try and extend it to eight weeks or ten weeks. And then that's the progress. And then you get to the point where you don't need those adjustments anymore. And we really want to minimize the amount of future adjustments that you get and really maximize the amount of stability. It's very possible that you can build up your spine and the stability in your spine and bring it back into alignment without even getting another adjustment. I know that it's possible because I've seen it, and I and I don't know your specific unique situation, and so it might be different for you, but it's in the realm of possibility for humans to realign their spine without a physical manipulation by a chiropractor. And you know, the fact that you're getting adjusted and then not being instructed by your chiropractor to follow that up immediately with stability exercises to keep it there, that's a problem with me. And so I think that there's a lot of great chiropractors out there. And just like any profession, there are others who are not as great. And you there are chiropractors that would say, okay, I'm going to adjust you, but you have to do the work afterwards. And those are the ones that you really should be seeking services from if you choose to get chiropractic. So that's what I'll say about that. I hope that that can offer you some direction. And this is going to be a long term game. I don't know any short term strategy to prevent this from happening, except for gradually building up the support for your spine. So we're going to get on to the next one. And that is from Don. This is posted in the Front Acres Awareness. It says I tried this three or four times throughout the day to get the intention, which by the third time I felt it, I love it, persistence. It prevails. I noticed that while pushing my pubic bones, there's only one pubic bone. Don. So I guess you could say there's two, but they're fused kind of in with the pubic symphysis. So we usually use the singular term for pubic bone into the ground using my glutes that my left side found the ground my right side slightly off the ground. Okay. So this does cause me to ask questions because while technically you could argue there are two pubic bones, a left and a right. They don't really typically function independently because of they are. There's a symphysis where they are joined together. So if you look at the skeleton image to the right here, the bottom anchor, that red dot is where the pubic bone is. And so I want you to be clear on where that is. Because usually when people talk about a left and a right side of the pelvis, they're talking more about the ASIS, which is up high. And we definitely don't want to be pushing those into the floor. And so maybe go back and review. If you scroll down in this lesson, the front anchors awareness lesson, I have an image of the pubic bone and also the ASIS. And you don't want to the assizes are on either side of your pelvis, so you don't want to be pushing those into the ground. And we'll focus on the pubic bone as kind of more of a single unit. So your left side found the ground, your right side slightly off the ground. So yeah, that's what makes me wonder if you're pushing the right part of your pelvis into the ground. So review that in the lesson. Scroll down in the description of the lesson and find the image of where your pubic bone is, and also where the assizes are. And don't push the assizes into the ground. Not surprised, as my right side has been a source of far more tightness in the hips, IT band, psoas, etc. etc. in fact, I have a lot of right side issues cranky IT band, sore knee tight hamstrings, yet my back flare ups generally are left side. Sometimes it takes writing down the observation, even if perceived to come to a conclusion or hypothesis. The hypothesis is my right side issues and tightness are partially to mostly to blame for my flare ups. Even have noticed weaker side core and glutes on this side. Of course, both sides I need to focus on. But identifying weaknesses is a benefit I've received so far by from this program. Understanding and relearning will yield to corrective behaviors, which I feel great about. Definitely agree with you there, Don. That is huge that you're taking that approach, you know, using exercises as a way to learn about your body, not just a solution or a or a tool to, to get to the solution, but actually to learn about potential imbalances and weaknesses and areas that you need to improve on is is an amazing strategy to take. Don, so good on you for that says this has led to reduced and possibly no more back flare ups. Excited to keep going even though I have got a nagging flare up going on now. Thanks so far. You're welcome Don, and that's great to hear. I just want to revisit the pubic bone conversation. It does, in this case with the front anchors awareness and the push away. It functions functions as one unit in the center of your body. And so we're not going to be looking at it as a right and a left. And then also just my theory on the right side, you know in the lower limbs or the left side and the core or the back, the flank, usually that's the case and it's related to hip mobility. So when you have excessive mobility in one hip and stiffness in the other, then the side that takes the hit is the opposite side of the side that has the stiffness. Because because it has to compensate for that. And so that's really it does make a lot of sense to me, and I'm not sure if you have a differences in your hip mobility, but it's true for the Si joint as well. So if you have, I'm going to say that again. I'm afraid I might have said that wrong. So say your right hip is more mobile than your left hip than the side of your problems with lower back or Si. Joint pain would typically be on the left side, so that may be consistent with you, or it may not be because it's not a true one hundred percent of the time across the board. And everybody's situation is a little bit unique and different. So hopefully that helps Don and yeah, revisit that. Front anchors awareness description down below. We've got one coming through from Jonathan. It's in the walking lesson. This is module six. It says the subtle intention I think is key. Whereas when on your back the tactile field of the floor gives you instant feedback of proper form while walking or standing. It has to be internal. That's right Jonathan, that's exactly the challenge that we face when we get up off the floor. It's a huge leap to take, and I don't have a middle ground to help, kind of gradually help people take that step. It's like you got the ground and you no longer have the ground. You know, the bridge kind of helps because we lift that back anchor off the floor and we can practice pushing away while it's off the floor, bring it back down and back off. So I guess the bridge, if anything would be a middle ground would be the bridge. Right? So the walking really is a big step and it sounds like grasping it mentally. You know, understanding it is a big part of that. And you've got that. So just keep practicing repetition over time. And that's that's the only way I know to get there. And I think you're definitely on the right track. So thank you for sharing. And I think that comment will be helpful for other students that read that as well. So and yeah, the deer, there's a lot of deer in Ashland. And so it's pretty cool. You know kind of everywhere. It makes it less special that it happened in the video, but still very cool. All right. So we've got a comment. This one is from Holly in the original back anchor lesson. So this is just like an extra resource for people to see. The old lesson from the original Corvallis training program, which was years ago. So it looked like she took a look at this one to help her. And Holly says, I started having crazy spasms in my posterior ribs. I made an appointment with my local PT to use heat and for him to assess thoughts. It is so intense that it takes my breath away. Thanks. I do have thoughts on this Holly. Most likely this is going to be muscular And it may be related to. It's most likely related to laying on the floor, and which can be stressful for certain people you know who haven't laid down on a firm surface like the floor in a long time. Our bodies often get used to cushion and soft surfaces, like a mattress or a couch or, you know, like a recliner chair. That's what some people end up laying on for years and years and years, and they don't get down on the floor, which is a very firm, drastic change from the cushioning surfaces. So that in itself can put a lot of pressure on the rib cage, and then adding in the extra pressure of pushing away from the back anchor from the support zone can even add more force into these tiny little muscles between the ribs that connect the ribs. And so while I don't believe it's a, you know, it's it's not a long term issue and it's it's not necessarily going to be something to worry about in the long term. It is something that we need to address. And so step one is going to be let the flare up, calm down, let it settle down. And then we need to find a way to gradually expose your rib cage and the little muscles between the ribs to the kind of pressure of the floor of a firm surface. And because you need to be able to lay on the floor in order to learn this stuff and be able to develop, you know, the core connection that can really lead to major advances in your posture. The way that we originally developed was on the floor. And so there are middle grounds, like using an exercise table, like what you find at your physical therapy clinic. It's firm, but it has some cushion. And so it's in between, like a mattress and the floor more tolerable. And you can practice your push away on something like that. This would be after you let the flare up, settle down, and just it's going to be about really gradual exposure for you. I wouldn't want this to cause you to, you know, abandon this approach, this strategy, because I believe that it's extremely effective, necessary for someone in your situation. This is, you know, out of the years of students that we've been doing this, maybe it's been about six years now, almost six years now. This is the second student I've seen with. It was quite different the first time. It was a student who mentioned that he felt kind of like a pop in his rib, and it was from laying on the floor. And so he hadn't been on the floor. And many years, I think, more than a decade. And so it was just a little too much intensity for the rib cage to handle. And so that is just an assumption I'm going to make, is that is the only real logical thing that would make sense to me is that is the firmness and the intensity of laying on the floor and then adding that pressure, but cannot cause, you know, this is not causing injury to your joints and it's really just muscular. You could think of it kind of like maybe like a strained muscle, all these tiny little muscles in your in your rib cage maybe got strained a little bit. And they need some time to heal. And then we need to build up their tolerance for something like this through what we call graded exposure or gradual reintroduction of the activity that we want to be doing. And so you can start on a more soft surface, like maybe multiple yoga mats stacked. So to add that cushion or maybe even a sleeping pad or a table, like a physical therapy table or massage table. So that's my advice and I apologize that that happened to you. And it seemed like it was pretty intense. So listen to your body and give it some time to recover. And then adjust the approach to to be able to be a little more gentle on the ribs when you're going to be laying on, on a firm surface like that. So semi firm surface, hopefully that helps. We've got one coming through from uh, more. Uh, I don't think this is a question. It's just uh, in an article called what makes the Bridge so perfect says I really have to work on my tight hip flexors. I will work on the bridge. As for now, I can't get it high enough to stretch the hip flexors. Okay that's okay. Keep working on the bridge and as you come up higher you will get to that point. Just make sure the extension is not going into your lower back and that the extension, the backward bending is going into your hips and there's no compensation there going into the lower back. The next one from Rigmor says, I knew the bridge is an important exercise. However, I avoided it as I always got cramps in the hamstrings. Now, I understand that this happened because I used my legs to push up and now use my core abdominals, but don't get very far up due to very tight hip flexors. Okay, so that's that is actually perfect. Rigmor. So the hip flexors are what are limiting you from coming up higher. So you want to work right at your edge there, right at that point where the hip flexors are limiting you and don't lose connection. That's the top priority is stay connected to your back anchor and to focus on core connection and keeping your pelvis stable in that neutral or posterior tilt, and then come up right up to that edge where your hip flexors are limiting you, and then try and just push that edge a little bit further. Go into those hip flexors and that extension goes into the hips not the lower back. And we'll just push it little by little day by day to get a little bit more mobility in those muscles and in those hip joints. And that's that's progress. That's all you can ask for there. So we'll move on to the next one. This one's from Graydon. It's posted in also in the original back anchor lesson from the original Core Balance training program from years ago. Graydon says, I can feel a contraction in my core, and my ribs do not flare. That's great. That's. We're on the right track. But because my shoulders are rounded, they come off the ground a little when I get a good contraction. Okay, yes, that makes sense. Is that okay? And because of this, it is bothering my neck a little bit. So what I am probably going to assume is that it's just a little bit of a compensation. When you contract your abdominals, it pulls your your forward naturally. And so we're getting a little bit of a compensation where it's not just the ribcage coming down through the contraction, but the rectus abdominis, those six pack abs, the glorious abdominal muscles that we can see on the outside that are not part of the deep core, those muscles are also contracting to kind of do a partial sit up, which is lifting your shoulders off the floor. So that makes a lot of sense. Yes. It's okay. I would maybe just try turning down the intensity a little bit. And then with the neck bothering you, I would try putting a rolled towel. Or more like a folded towel. Not a rolled towel, but a folded towel. Find the thickness that you need to find comfort, but no more. So don't do this thick of a folded towel. If you only needed this thick, and then get you to the point where that's comfortable, and then will gradually progress that by over time, over days and repetition over time. Reduce the thickness of the towel as your body changes shape, as your posture changes and the your posterior neck muscles lengthen, and it allows your body to lay on a more flat position and your shoulders will also open up. And that's the entire purpose of this program. So you're doing the right thing. I'm glad you found the program this is going to help with that upper crust posture, and it's just a matter of allowing yourself time and having the patience to know that these are tiny little changes that happen over a period of days and weeks and months. So stick with it and you will see the body just gradually change shape as the the muscular balance changes. So glad you reached out about that, Graydon. And then we have our last post of the day. This one's from Moises. It's posted in the day one lesson back anchor awareness. He says, hello Doctor Ryan, when I attempt to bring my rib cage down, I feel my mid-back vertebrae from about T4 to T10. Okay, yes. You feel that get strained and even start to feel a bit nauseous. Okay. Which usually happens when one or more of the vertebrae in my mid-back goes out of alignment. Okay, sorry, I'm just processing all this. Okay. I do frequently have subluxations that I go to a chiropractor for, and I'm aware that the back anchor exercise is not necessarily causing the subluxations, but may be triggering or exposing a back issue or imbalance I've had for many years. Moises, I just want to mention that I'm really glad that you can see it from that perspective. It would be easy for some students to have the near term vision that the only the activity that they are doing in the moment is causing the problem, when in reality, in most cases, signs and symptoms are a build up over a long period of time over many factors. And and so I'm glad you can see it that way. That's a huge step in making progress. So at any rate, I may have overdone it, but my first question is, is it okay if I can only go, say, twenty percent of the way down? I still feel my back shift a bit and some engagement in my front abdominals. I don't know if I would ever be able to go all the way down without affecting my mid back vertebrae, but perhaps I can work towards it. Are there any tips for doing this without causing the discomfort I described above? A second question I have with the back anchor exercise is it seems the exercise flattens the curvature of the spine to some degree. Isn't it important to maintain the curvature in the spine? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the goal of the exercise. Thank you. Okay, I can see, Moises, that you're a very thoughtful person. You've put a lot of thought into this because the nature of your questions is that you have done that and that you understand a lot of things. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. And so all I can do is offer a little bit of explanation. So let's go back up to the first question and we'll just kind of go through chronologically. Here's the first question. Is it okay if I can only go, say, twenty percent of the way down? The answer is yes. Go to the point, Moises, that you are at your edge, but don't go past that edge into the trigger of symptoms to where it becomes more of a negative experience or negative result. So you go right up to that edge and you work there, you live there, and you try to push that edge further. Gradually over time, over a period of days, weeks and months. So maybe next time you do it, you can make it to twenty one percent and then twenty four percent and then thirty percent. And so this is progress. This is the only way that we know how to do it. And and yes, I do believe you can get to the point where you can go all the way down if you have the perseverance, if you can stay committed and perform repetition over time on a daily basis, you can make that progress and take a day off when you need to. So you say, I still feel my back shift a bit and some engagement in my front abdominals. Yes, that will be beneficial. We are training over a period of time and it's not just one session that makes the change or the solution, it's just training. Firing patterns in the body is what we're doing and that takes lots of time. I don't know if I would ever be able to go all the way down without affecting my mid back vertebrae. Not really, because you're we're dealing with the rib cage. You know, the goal is to bring the rib cage down and the thoracic spine is attached to the rib cage, so they move together. So yes, you're right, but I do believe you can build up the tolerance of your mid-back vertebrae to be able to handle the movement over time, but perhaps I can work towards it. Yes. Are there any tips for doing this without causing the discomfort I described above? So I kind of already gave that tip. Work to your edge, not further, and work on pushing that edge over time. A second question I have is with the back anchor exercise, it seems the exercise flattens the curvature of the spine to some degree. Isn't it important to maintain the curvature of the spine? So yes, to some degree it does flatten the lower back and that's not our focus. So for some people the lower back will come all the way down. For others it will stay a little bit arched off the ground. What we're focused on is the back anchor, which is the bottom of the rib cage in the back. We're connecting that with the floor. And whatever happens to the lower back, it happens. It goes along for the ride with what the rib cage does, and we're not concerned about it. And with your comment about isn't it important to maintain the curvature of the spine? Absolutely. There's a natural curvature of the spine. And it's important to have that curvature for impact absorption. And what tends to happen in the predictable pattern of muscle imbalances is that these curvatures of our spine tend to become over accentuated, overexaggerated. They increase too much. And that's how our posture becomes rounded. The curvatures are increasing. And so while we do want curvature on our spine, there is such a thing as having too much curvature that becomes has a negative impact. So we want to bring the spine more back into alignment towards less curvature for most people. In eighty percent of the cases, unless you have flat back, which is, you know, a smaller percentage of people than our goal is to increase the alignment of the spine. And we're not going to get to the point where the spine is perfectly straight. We want to address the extreme and go towards neutral, which is some some curvature. And that's that's typically, you know, that's that's the predictable pattern is we need to reduce the exaggerated curves in our spine. And so yes, you're right. It is important to have some curvature. So hopefully that helps I think that will wrap up today's stream. Anyone that showed up live. Thank you for being here. And, you know, to conclude the topic, we talked about how connecting with your deep core is not only beneficial for your supporting your spine, but it also improves the performance of all of the power muscles in your body to improve movements and your daily life and sports and high level activities such as competition. Just connecting with these tiny deep muscles that don't even provide much movement at all. It helps the performance of the the power movement muscles. And so that's a reminder to get down on the floor and connect to your core and of how important that is. So thanks again for being here. And if you enjoyed anything about the stream and you made it to the end and subscribe if you haven't already. So thanks again. And until next time, get down on the floor and connect to your core. Take.
