This week's topic is can or does exercising cause lower back pain? Can it be a cause for worsening your condition? And so we're going to dive deep into that. This topic was based off of many student questions over the years. Over the six years that we've been doing this about, particularly one student comment this week inspired this topic. And so we're going to dive deep into how and when exercising or doing exercises can worsen back pain versus when they can help back pain. Of course, as a program for reversing the causes of chronic lower back pain, I do believe that it's possible. And I know that it's possible to improve your situation through exercises, but it's the way that we approach the exercises, our perspective on what the exercises are doing for us, that really matters. And I've done an entire stream on this topic in the past. And so if I want to kind of dive deeper into that, if you want to dive deeper into that aspect of how you can best use exercises to improve your situation, we can link to that stream for you. It's called the best exercises for Lower back Pain. And in this stream, we're going to be focusing more on the aspect of how exercises can cause back pain. So it's the two sides of the coin. And so it's very beneficial to understand what things to avoid and what could be causing back pain. To give you a better idea and better guidance on the right things to do as well. So welcome and thank you for being here. If you haven't already seeing the master class. I go into detail about the root causes of chronic lower back pain and in a nutshell, they are called muscle imbalances. And muscle imbalances are simply imbalances in the tension relationship of different muscles in your body. They get out of balance with each other. And so this is a major underlying cause of chronic lower back pain. And I'd say an eighty percent of cases or higher when there's recurring prolonged incidences of back pain, there are muscle imbalances underneath. Okay. So that is an important thing to understand. Before I get into my main point of this topic, which is when you have muscle imbalances and you go to exercise with those imbalances, you may be strengthening the imbalances depending on what you're doing. And if you have an experience where you've exercised, and then later in the day you actually feel worse, it's likely because you've strengthened these imbalances. And it's a, it's an interesting kind of phenomenon that I've noticed. But one thing that has become clear to me over the years of doing this is that people who are athletic or fit actually have a harder time climbing out of the back pain cycle than people who have a lower level of fitness. So the more fit you are, the more athletic you are, the more challenging it can be because these muscle imbalances are so well established and the way that you may have exercised in the past, you know, as a younger person with more balance in your body no longer works for the current state of your fitness. And it's very difficult for people who, with a high level of fitness to break out of that pattern. One example is someone who is extremely fit and they go to a physical therapist, and there's the physical therapist does all kinds of strength tests and mobility tests. And because this person is extremely fit or extremely athletic, they pass every test. For the physical therapist. So what does the PT do at this point? It's kind of a stumper because there's not a whole lot to improve on. And so these types of people, these very fit people, these very athletic people are more difficult to treat and to improve. Then someone, for example, on the other end of the spectrum who has a very low level of fitness, who tests very weak for certain exams in a physical therapy room, and it gives that physical therapist many options to improve on glute strength, hip mobility, and their leaves room for improvement. And so this is the main point I want to get across is that when you have muscle imbalances, it's not really a matter of getting stronger or even what level of strength you're at. An imbalance is an imbalance, and the stronger you are, the stronger the imbalances are. And so that is at one point I want to get across. And if you're not aware already, particularly if you haven't watched the masterclass, these muscle imbalances have effects at the joint, at the level of the joint, the muscle imbalances bring the joints out of alignment and it can lead to things like friction. And if you go to exercise with this kind of situation, this kind of friction that may be occurring in your body because the joints are not perfectly in alignment, they might be a little bit off. And that kind of friction can lead to later in the day or in your long journey of back pain to worsening the condition. And so ultimately, what we want to do is move towards a more balanced posture, more balanced musculature. And that doesn't require simply strengthening. This is a point I want to get across to everyone. Is that simply strengthening your body is not the solution or strengthening your core without paying? Having a deliberate approach, a deliberate strategy to reverse the muscle imbalances at the same time? Is not the solution to back pain because it may simply be strengthening the imbalances. Take a moment to digest that. I hope that makes sense. And so the answer to the question of the stream of can exercises worsen back pain is absolutely. If the muscle imbalances exist and there's joint incongruencies in the body, going to do high level activities is going to irritate the body. And so it's important that we work towards bringing the body back into balance. And during that process, doing exercises that specifically target that direction towards balance. And so it's not about what exercise you do, it's about how you do the exercise. I'm going to say that again. Exercises can hurt your lower back. Exercises can cause lower back pain depending on how you do them, not which exercises you do. So we want to be able to move with a strong core connection. Core based movement is what we teach in the program, and we actually name certain parts of your core, and we try to build the connection between the points. And so when we do movements, functional movements that you have to do to get through life, we have that established connection. Anything you do, any exercise you do can improve your condition or worsen your condition because it's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. And if you can't tell, I feel very strongly about that. So one more time, if you want to dive deep into the best exercises for lower back pain. Where I go deeper into this topic of how to do it, you can check out the stream I did called the best Exercises for Lower Back Pain, and you can also do the free trial of the Core Balance training program if you're not already in the program. And I basically walk you through a protocol for improving your muscular balance. So that's the topic for today. This topic was inspired by a student post. So Bruce, thank you for sharing this post. This is in one of the extra lessons where we go deep into what core balance training is and how the solution actually works. If you haven't watched the Art of Core Balance three part series, I highly recommend that's in the program. You can access it within the free trial. This is part three. And so Bruce says, wow, this all helps so much and makes perfect sense. I have a ton of injuries and over several decades have allowed my posture to get in pretty bad shape. The reason is because it hurts really bad to try and exercise the old way. I am used to, which makes things worse. Looking forward to learning a lot more. So this is very powerful. This is the point of today's stream is for people that were fit or athletic and the body. Because of whatever reason, we do go into the reasons in part two for why the body tends to get out of balance, the body gets out of balance, and then we go back and we try to exercise the old way. Just like Bruce says, you know, it hurts really bad to try and exercise the old way. I am used to, which makes things worse. When we go try and do that. Exactly what I was explaining before. That's what happens. We're strengthening the imbalances. And so I just want to thank Bruce for sharing that. As always, every week, the students determine the topic for the week just by the posts and the comments that they make. So this inspired this week's topic. And so the solution to chronic lower back pain is bringing your body back into balance and learning a new way to move, a new way to connect and relate to your body so that you can keep it in balance no matter what you're doing. And that can turn any exercise into being good for your body. If you are practicing core based movement, that is the maintenance. It doesn't have to be exercises anymore. It can be doing housework or yard work or the dishes or picking up a box off the floor. If you're using your core and it's actively involved, that core based movement is what keeps your body healthy and maintains your body. So that's what I believe is the solution to lower back pain is. Developing a healthier relationship with your body and connecting to your core for core based movement and all the things that you do. I think we just have a comment from Catherine. Hello, Catherine, and welcome. Thank you for being here. This is day five. Earlier today, I realized I have been overusing my back muscles and not my core muscles. Very informative. Thank you, Catherine, and I'm glad you had a little mini breakthrough. This is the way that I hope for the program to go for students is little mini realizations and breakthroughs along the journey of learning about your body, and also implementing the things that you learn on a daily basis. And so realizing that you've been overusing your back muscles is a massive step towards the solution. At this point, you can now begin to take a step towards striving to towards balance, towards using your core and your entire abdomen three hundred and sixty degrees around to move. It's not just your abdominal muscles, it's not just any muscle. It's using all the muscles, working together rather than heavily using one group and not really using another group very much. And that's the balance that I'm talking about. So thank you for sharing. And let's get into the students questions and comments. As we do every week and every week we do a featured student. So this week's featured student is Mark. Mark completed the program and he hasn't submitted his email yet. At answering the questions we ask every student that finishes the program. But he did make a comment in the last lesson called Maintenance commitment says thank you, Doctor Ryan. I am now able to bring a more balanced, core centric approach to yoga, exercise and daily activities. All the best and many thanks. Thank you Mark, and you deserve all the credit because you're the one that did the work and that is the most important thing is the daily commitment. And so this is right in line with the topic of today's stream. And really the entire theme of core balance training is more balanced, core centric approach to everything. It doesn't have to be exercise. It can be walking, it can be meditating, it can be anything you want to be able to sit or stand or reach with a more core centric approach. So thank you for sharing, Mark, and I'm happy to hear about your success and keep it up. It doesn't stop at the end of the program. It goes on for the rest of your life. So thanks again. Let's see. We have about ten questions to get through today. So we're going to go ahead and tackle one by one. Question number one. This is from Brad. And he posted this in the Get Fat concept day five which is what you did today Catherine. Brad says, we have been trying to perfect the getting fat step in the video. What do you do if you honestly don't have any of those core muscles? That's a really good question, Brad. Why don't we answer that right now? Before we even continue in his question. So the first thing I want to make clear about is that you do have the muscles. You probably don't have any connection to those muscles. So what we have is two things going on. We have anatomy. We have like the mass of our tissues, of our body tissues, which includes muscles and tendons and ligaments and bones and all these things. And then we have the connection, which is no other than electricity, and it's the electricity that you probably are missing, the connection from your brain to those muscles that go, that runs through nerves, which is your electrical wires of the body. And those nerves have a certain amount of pathway to those muscles. And when we lose connection, that pathway shrinks and the firing patterns shrink with it. So you can imagine a superhighway to running from your brain to muscles that you use heavily and overuse and use all the time. Think about the hip flexors, the quads, the arms. We become very limb dominant. And then you can imagine a one way dirt road to muscles that we don't use enough. And that is the connection that you might have to your deep core muscles. And so we just want to expand that pathway by sending more electricity through it. And the only way that you can do that is through intention. That's the only way that I know. Brad. So to answer your question, what do you do if you honestly don't have a connection to these muscles? Is even if you don't have the connection, even if you cannot do the thing that's in the lesson, you can have the intention. And that is what trains the thing. And I say the thing because it can, this can apply to anything. We use intention in the program as our primary tool to push away. And the push away concept. That's day two. And we do not try to control how these things happen. All we do is use pure intention, just like an infant or a baby did when they were learning to move. Before they knew what words were, before they knew what muscles were, before they knew how to contract a muscle, all they did was have the intention of getting up off the floor and being like everyone else. And what did they do? They pushed away from the floor, and that push away was what developed healthy, perfect posture and movement. By the age of four years old, a healthy, developing baby and child will have perfect posture and movement by the age of four years old. And no one ever taught them anything about how to achieve that. It was purely through intention. So, Brad, that's my advice to you, is to have the intention. And some day, if there is no connection, you know, there's a blockade on your dirt road to these muscles. Someday you will break through that blockade and you will feel the connection. And this is a report I get from many students is it just clicked one day it just clicked. They were trying and eventually something happened and that electrical connection was made. And that was the breakthrough. So as I was saying to Catherine earlier, the goal for this program is to have a series of mini breakthroughs as you make these connections and have these realizations. And sometimes it's the aha moments that lead that are that coincide with some physiological event in the body. So that's the long answer. Let's continue with your question, Brad. It says, I have had a bad back for many years and have not done a sit up or used my core for many years. I have permanent doughboy right now no matter what I do. Are there other exercises I can do to improve this quickly or just keep working on the perfect bridge? Thank you. The first thing that really stands out to me, Brad, that I believe will be the most helpful thing I can tell you. To heal your back and to bring your body back into balance is to lose the desire to do this quickly, because it's that desire that contributes to the problem for many people. And it may not be for you because you say that you have not done any sit ups or use your core for many years. But for many people that are trying to get out of the cycle, including myself, back in the past, it was overdoing it and doing too much. That was keeping me in the cycle because I wanted to get there faster. I wanted to do more. I wanted to do as much as I could, and that was part of the problem. And so to accept that this is a long process, this is a process of slow, gradual progression day by day, little by little, that over time accumulates to be significant. Massive change over a period of as quickly as three months. You can have massive life changing progress, and it's only done by day by day. That is the best thing you can do. And that type of progress, that slow progress, is the most sustainable in my opinion, the most sustainable, the most long lasting type of progress. It's that slow progress rather than the quick progress. So now to answer your question, are there other exercises I can do to improve this or just keep working on the perfect bridge? I would say that if your bridge isn't perfect, if you haven't, don't feel like you've mastered it. That's the best thing you could be doing right now. You're building the foundation with your back anchor and your front anchors. And so I think that I truly believe that if I knew a way to do this quicker to to accomplish this process quicker, that's how I would have designed the program. And I would put any possible thing that I knew. I'm not holding any secrets back that could help people or even help myself. I would put it into the regimen. And so that's the way I've designed the regimen is the best way I know how. And it's this slow process, and it's hard for a lot of people because our human nature is to be efficient and to get there as soon as possible. But sometimes, you know, like in this case, it's the real solution is a bit counterintuitive, and that is letting the body adapt slowly and letting it, you know, evolve towards a healthier body. And so bringing your body back into balance. It takes time. Yeah, I would just double down. My advice to you, Brad, like practical advice is double down on what you're already doing. Have the intention of connecting to your deep core just by connecting to your back anchor and pushing away from it on the floor. Your deep core is engaging whether you feel it or not, and just continue to have that intention and you'll make one percent progress every day and over a period of ten days, that'll be very noticeable. And double down and do it twice a day and keep doing the bridge. And once you get into module two is a whole new module of things that will be, you'll be able to do and add to your process, but focus on mastering what you have now before we add more. Thank you for asking that, Brad. Next question is from Tammy posted in the Back Anchor lesson. I believe it was probably day one back anchor awareness. Thank you for your concern. I am having some pain in my left rib cage from the back anchor that I am choosing to recover from before continuing. Is this normal? Thank you again. A really common question that we get is this normal? And you know, the part of the question before is can vary. I'm having soreness in my rib cage. I'm having. It could be left. It could be right. It could be the front of the rib cage. While doing this exercise and then followed up with, is this normal? And it's hard to answer that. I guess it is normal because it's common. It's a very common question, but it's also not normal because the normal that we are striving for is to not have pain. So it's both. The answer is both. And so yes, it's common and we can explain it. There's nothing, you know, structurally wrong with you Tammy. It's likely that you just getting down and laying on a firm surface like the floor, and then pushing your rib cage into the floor will cause some soreness. Maybe because your rib cage isn't used to that unique action. And the amount of pressure. And then the next day you feel a little soreness from that, and you're doing the right thing by letting your giving yourself a day to recover, because this is a long term process, and it doesn't matter if you do this tomorrow or a week from now, it matters that you do it and that you go at the pace that is most appropriate for your level of fitness, and that requires listening to your body. So you're doing the right thing. It's yes, normal and no, not normal. But I don't see anything wrong with experiencing that and just continue to have the intention of connecting to your back, anchor equally on both sides and strengthen that connection. And I think that the strategy you're using to give yourself time with the soreness that will work, that will be successful, and eventually that soreness won't come because your body will get used to that process. So yeah, that's okay. And it's not that uncommon. Next question is from Nick. This is posted in an article called Tug of War The Force that Controls Pelvic Tilt. And Nick says, I believe I am doing this exercise right. I believe he's talking about the bridge. He says, but how can I tell if I am losing the tug of war? And if my hip flexors are tilting my pelvis anteriorly while in the air, how can you tell the ultimate? The big picture answer is body awareness. And you can, you know, there's three different ways or more, but three that we learn about in physical therapy school to develop that body awareness. And the scientific term, the medical term is called proprioception. And so to that you can use the feeling of your body. So that's the hardest one where you can just tell if your elbow is straight or your elbow is bent, you can just feel that through your nerve cells. And so some people, when you develop that awareness, you can, you can tell when your pelvis is anterior or not, but if that one is not working to its full capacity, then we can use our eyes. So you can look with your vision. And if having a mirror helps to see while you're doing the bridge, to be able to kind of peek at a mirror and get that perspective. We use mirrors a lot in physical therapy for visual aids or visual cues. And then the third way is tactile. You can actually take your hands and you can place them on your pelvis at the assays. It's the most prominent point on the front of my pelvis, and everybody should be able to feel this, even if you have a nice belly in front of you, these are would be underneath that and to the side. And it's the most prominent point of bone when you're in an anterior pelvic tilt that tips forward. And when you're in posterior tilt, it comes back and the pubic bone comes forward. So anterior pelvic tilt, the pubic bone comes back and the ASIS comes forward. So when you are doing the exercise and you use your hands and you feel those points, you may need to give yourself a frame of reference or a perspective. So before you come up into the bridge, you can do a posterior pelvic tilt, which is a lesson in that same day, and you can feel what happens to your pelvis and where those points are, and then keep your hands there and maybe have your thumbs, like connected to your rib cage so you can feel the space between them. So this is the space between my pelvis and my rib cage. And if you are going into anterior tilt and that space expands, that's how you can know. And when they go into posterior pelvic tilt, that space will approximate. And so using your hands is the third way a tactile cue. So those are the best tricks or tactics I have for for being able to tell. But ultimately you want to be able to improve, number one, which is proprioceptive awareness and just being able to feel that your hip flexors are pulling and this is just you can have your eyes closed and you can have your hands anywhere. This is just feeling in your body. The positional awareness of your body. You can feel that the hip flexors are pulling on your spine. And if that is the case, then and you can feel your pelvis and you can kind of mess around just coming a little higher, a little lower, and you can feel your pelvis tilting. You want to improve that skill. So that's my recommendation in the long run is to improve your proprioception. So you have more. You share more. So let's read it. It says I can feel the difference when I am flat on the ground. But when I am in the air doing the bridge, I am not sure how to tell what's what. I can engage my core. I feel tightness in the front of my legs and my glutes working, but I have no idea which way my pelvis is tilting towards at this point. I'm trying to keep it in the same position as it was while laying flat on the ground, but after a five minute bridge. I cannot tell if I've successfully maintained this, and I'm worried I could be doing more harm than good if my pelvis is tilted wrong while in the air. So Nick, in addition to everything I said before, this is just a skill that you will develop over time and you will get better at. In addition to that, you'll want to just feel how your body feels after you've done your routine. After you've done that exercise, like later in the day or even immediately after when you get up off the floor and you start walking around. How does your body feel? Does your back feel better? Because it should. I believe that if you're doing the exercises and the connection's the right way in this program, you should feel better after doing every session. You should feel improvement. This is not like other other modalities and treatments where some professionals will say, it'll take you three weeks, it'll take me three weeks of treatment to know if we're doing this right. And you may not even feel better after after the treatment. This is very different. Your body is communicating to you constantly, and you should be able to tell that you did something good for your body immediately because it feels better or lighter or more just something just positive. And so if that's the case, then you're doing it right. And you said, I cannot tell if I'm doing this right. You know, and if you feel worse after the routine or the exercise, then that is your indicator that something needs to change. And it may be that you were letting you were losing the tug of war. So that's my advice to you is to listen to your body. And that's the number one best strategy that you can use. Actually, I did an entire stream on this. It's called the best skill for reversing Back Pain. I think it's the number one most valuable skill for in the long run in your lifetime. And I go deep into this topic of how listening to your body can be implemented as a strategy to improve your back. So thank you for asking. Let's move on to the next one. This is from Catherine posted in the Back Anchor Awareness lesson. This was day one of the program in the free trial, Katherine says is it common to have soreness in the back after doing this? Another question similar to the one earlier, I said, this is a very common question, right? It was hard for me to sit up because I was sore. But a few hours later now my back actually feels better than it did before the exercise. Uh wow. I did not plan this, but it couldn't have been more perfect timing to follow this up with what I was just saying. When you feel better after doing the routine, your body is telling you you did something right. And I do talk about experiencing soreness, uh, while doing exercises. It can be for the very reason that you have not used those muscles in that way. Uh, for a long time. And this is day one for you, Catherine. So very possible explanation. And you can compare it to getting out of a car after a long car ride. You've been in the car for five hours and you get out. Your muscles are sore. It doesn't mean that getting out of the car was bad for you. It was actually good for you. But the muscles are very stiff and sore because you haven't used them in that way for a long time. Well, this happens with our lower back muscles and for a lot of people getting in the very first week, doing some of these exercises will move the body in ways that it hasn't moved in a while. And it's just a stiff. It's a muscle stiffness type soreness where there hasn't been much blood flow to those muscles, but you should feel better later. And so that's what you've experienced. And that's your body communicating to you that you've done something right. So good job. It is common and it is not everyone, but it is something that a question I get asked a lot and that should improve over time as your body gets more familiar and used to doing this particular movement. Thank you for asking, Catherine. Next question is Michael. Michael asks in the introduction to the Perfect Bridge Lesson. I have trouble with this as my hamstrings tend to cramp as I lift my pelvis. So I did the exercise with only unweighting my hips and not sure it helped much. Are there exercises I can do to alleviate the cramping? It happens due to the position of the leg, not because I am using my legs to raise my pelvis. Maybe some type of stretching exercise will help. So this is a. I believe Michael, this is a second post that you've done about your hamstring cramping, and you had mentioned in your previous post that this cramping in your hamstrings started around the time you had an L4 five. Um, going by memory here, so forgive me if I'm wrong. L4 five fusion lumbar fusion surgery. And so it's hard for me to give advice with this because when you have a surgery like that and there is an external, you know, change that where a surgeon goes into your body and makes changes from the outside to the inside of your body. I don't know exactly what they did, and I don't know where the hardware is and how close it is to the nerves, but it does seem to me like this cramping that you're experiencing is positional. So it depends what position your body is in. And it's possible that the being in that position is causing a nerve to be uncomfortable in some way. And cramping can be nerve caused by nerve compression or nerve impingement. And it also could be caused by something like potassium, right? Sure. But I don't think that's the case for you. I don't think that you are short on potassium. And and there are other causes for cramping as well. Like the most common cause for cramping in the bridge is that we are taking the muscle out of its safe zone, out of its functional zone, and it doesn't know how to function in this range of motion because it doesn't hasn't done that in a long time. And so it cramps up as a protective mechanism. I don't think that's happening for you either. I think it seems like just something about being in this position. And so in both this is in response to both your comments about this issue. I think what you need to do, Michael, is listen to your body, no matter what's going on, and to do the exercise to the capacity that your body is allowing it. And so in general, the strategy for you is going to be to. And this is a strategy for any issue that's coming up. And cramping is a great example of it, but it could be something different where it's a type of pain or a type of pinch or a type of negative effect. You want to go up to the point just before the cramping or the negative effect occurs in the bridge or the back anchor progression, or any exercise you're doing, you want to go right up to that point before the cramping occurs and not into it. Stop just short of it and try and exercise right there. This is the strategy. And over time you want to push that limit a little bit further, one percent at a time. So maybe the next day it's not even noticeably further, but you're able to go one percent further. And over time, over a period of a week or two, you can make noticeable gains in your limit of functional movement that you're able to do before the cramping comes on. The amount of height that you come up in the bridge, or the amount of lifting of your legs you can do in the back of progression before the cramping comes on. And so that's the strategy. That's the best way I know to improve and make progress. While you're dealing with something like pain during exercise. Go up to the limit just before the pain comes on, and stop just short of it and work right there, right at your edge and try to push that edge over a period of days, weeks, maybe even months. I've done an entire stream on that topic, which is called How to Progress While in Back Pain. And we can link to that for you guys as well. The stretching exercise question, Michael, I don't recommend like a static stretching exercise before doing dynamic exercise. The research shows that static stretching like a hamstring stretch, just touching your toes actually can increase the likelihood of of a pulled muscle or something like that. So any kind of warm up where it's movement related to get your body warmed up? Yes. Go for a walk, do any movement that you feel is good for your body that you know from your past experiences, feels good for your body. Warm up and get the blood flowing. That's the type of exercise that I would recommend to get ready for this daily routine. So that's my recommendation and we'll move on to the next question from Jeanette. This one is posted in Master the Perfect Bridge. So there's actually three perfect bridge lessons. This is the third one and probably week three, module three. Jeanette says, I'm doing this program daily with great success. But then after a flight had sciatica flare up, Now I had an MRI with l5, S1 issues, serious issues anyway. Will this program continue to help or do I stop and stick with where I've got to? So I responded to Janette in the lesson with a short with short advice that definitely don't give up. It sounds like you know, Janette, you've been doing the program daily with great success. And so we want to continue that success. And because an airplane flight, which is a common place where people have flare ups because it's excessive, prolonged sitting, and we have no nothing we can do about it. We're trapped right in this small space. It causes flare ups. It's common, but we cannot forget about the progress we made and we can recreate that. And I'm going to get a little bit deeper into my answer about that in a minute. But I want to finish. She followed up and she says, I have one month before I need to guide a trek. So I'm trying to balance the medical advice with my absolute need to guide. The MRI shows a very far progressed herniation of L5, S1. Okay, so we're going to talk about the L5, S1 herniation and the MRI in a minute. But first I want to talk about the overall strategy, and that is to accept what happened to you on the airplane as a setback. And setbacks happen to all of us. And they're the hardest thing about climbing out of the cycle is we make progress, we make progress, and then we lose all of it because of a setback. But we didn't lose all of it because your body already learned something. And to relearn something you've already learned is much easier and happens over a shorter period of time than the first time you had to do it. It's building that initial momentum that is the hardest and you did the hardest part. And so now you have to accept this as a setback. Give your body time to recover from the airplane flight, and that might be a period of a couple days to a week. And then and during that recovery time, you want to go to the basics. Jeanette. You want to go to module one and do the back anchor awareness and breathe and meditate and continue to maintain and build that foundational connection. And module two the front anchors, if it feels good for you, the awareness and the connection and the push away and build that connection during the time of recovery. A couple times a day. Then once your recovery period is up and you feel you're ready to resume, you want to build. And I would recommend just doing the protocol of the program. The bridge followed by I don't know, you must be at least in module three. So the front anchors challenge is a phenomenally safe and effective core balancing exercise. And do it over again. And accepting the fact that this is a setback is a very powerful mental thing you can do, is to accept it and say, okay, I will take you on setback. I can do this again because I've already done it. I've proven to myself that I've already done it, and I will get my progress back, and then I will continue more. And this time I won't have a setback like that because I've learned from the previous one. And so if you have to have another airplane flight, you're going to have to try and spend a lot of it standing up and walking down the hallway because the aisle, I mean, because your back is more important to you than the embarrassment or whatever it is of walking up and down the aisle or standing on an airplane. Your health is more important to you. So that's part one and part two. I just want to talk about the MRI showing your very progressed herniation of l5-s1. This is scary. MRIs are scary. They're not only scary for people with back pain, but also if you take MRIs of people with no back pain, they can have a very far progressed herniation of L5, S1 with no pain at all. And the research is very heavy stacks of research to the ceiling that show there is a very poor correlation of damage shown in imaging, MRI, CT scan, X-ray and pain. And in this case, your pain may have been a result of the herniation pushing on a nerve. But after a period of time, that herniation becomes old and it is no longer a fresh new bulge or spill of the disc into the nerve. And the body will adapt to work around that. And this is as scary as it is. It's very common. And this man, this stream seems like the stream where I reference all the other streams, but I highly. I think I already told you, I hope I did, but I highly recommend you check out the stream I did called imaging. Is it good or bad for back pain? You can just go and watch that stream and see the research that shows overwhelmingly that imaging, like an MRI, does not improve your outcome for getting out of the back pain, getting an MRI does not improve it, and looking at it and trying to strategize your treatments around what they see in the MRI is not the best way to go. The best way to go, in fact, is get the MRI. If you feel like there is a serious risk of paralysis or cancer or tumor or something to rule it out. But once you rule it out and in your case, we can rule it out, Ignore the MRI and just do the best thing you can do to improve your core and the support for your spine, just like anyone else. Just like the person that never got the MRI. Because seeing the damage and being told about the details of the damage by medical professionals has a negative psychological impact on your movement and your relationship with your body. And so we want to we want we don't want to give the MRI more power by causing it to make us move differently and give us fear and change our lives. We want to give the MRI less power and do what we know to do, which is the same thing. As long as you don't have cancer or central spinal cord risk of damage, which you don't have peripheral nerve, you know, peripheral nerve, and it's resulting in a sensory Symptom, which is sciatica. It doesn't seem like it's affecting your motor nerves that controls your leg movements. We can improve upon this. And so but the solution doesn't change whether you have whether you look at the MRI or not. So give it less power and believe in your ability because you've already done it and take the setback. Accept it and then build back up. So that's my advice to you. That's what I would do if I were you, Jeanette. And thank you for sharing. Moving on to the next question, post it in the back. Anchor awareness lesson. This is from Kevin says my previous chiropractor suggested that when I sleep, I put a pillow under my knees. That's fine. And a small rolled blanket or something under the small of my back. Okay. The focus was always keeping that curvature in the lower back and not flattening it. And these exercises you have me doing the opposite. Would you suggest I take that support out from my lower back when I sleep, so that my back anchor can be more anchored all night long. Thanks. That's a great question, Kevin. I definitely think that I would have asked this question too, if I were you. So I think this is the best thing I can do for you is clarify some things. First of all, in the program, we do not have any intention of flattening our lower back. Yes, the lower back will flatten to some degree when you connect to your back anchor. But the two are different when you're talking about intentions, connecting to your back anchor is connecting the bottom of your rib cage in the back to the floor and that in it, what it does, the result that we're after is it activates your core muscles in a healthy way. Flattening your lower back is a totally different intention that you can do with your glutes, exclusively with your glutes, with no core activation. And it is not a healthy strategy for lower back pain. It's not sustainable. It's not something we can do while doing functional movement. You can't keep your lower back flat and go for a walk, but you can connect to your back anchor and go for a walk and have that subtle abdominal engagement while you're walking. The other thing is that flattening your lower back completely is not a natural posture. There is a natural curvature to the spine, so we don't want to flatten it completely. And that's the first clarification I want to make with you, Kevin. The next clarification is that we are when we're sleeping, our body is fully relaxed. And so we're not actually connecting to our back anchor because connecting to our back anchor is an active thing. It requires active muscle engagement. And so we're not doing that when we're sleeping. So it's not a concern. You just want to be able to sleep comfortably and get good sleep. So whatever position you are in, whatever position that helps you to sleep the most comfortably is always a good thing. And if that means putting a rolled towel or something under the small of your back, then that's okay. It's not something I recommend, but if it works for you, and then you take the towel out and it's harder for you to sleep, or it's more painful than I suggest you do the rolled towel. That's my suggestion. I don't think it's bad for your spine to help maintain a little bit of curvature, but if you had an instability or a spondylolisthesis and it definitely could be bad, it's up to the person. It's up to the individual and the unique case by case situation. So I have done a stream entirely on sleeping positions, which you can check out by going to into channel, or we can even link to it above. Up above right here. And you can also, yeah, check that stream out and take a look at the ways that I recommend that you sleep. I did an entire stream on it. So, but yeah, at the end of the day, Kevin, it's about what's most comfortable for you. You don't need to put a rolled pillow under your lower back. I mean, that's not a requirement for a healthy spine. If it were, then everybody would need to do it. But I don't know your unique individual case, and I don't know the feelings that you feel when you have it versus when you don't. And that's really what you want to pay attention to is how does your body feel? And so, yeah, that's the best answer I could probably give is case by case. Listen to your body. And the typical person with lower back pain does not need the rolled towel. And it's also not part of the solution to back pain. The solution is developing a better relationship with your core and your body while you're awake. And the best thing you can do is when you're sleeping is sleep comfortably and sleep well. Yeah. Thanks for asking. And so the next question is from Eric and it's posted in the Bridge lesson. Eric says the backpacker awareness session really helped me execute the bridge, something I've always struggled with. A couple of questions on the bridge. How far up should we go? That's a good question, Eric. The answer is to it's going to involve listening to your body and the determining factor for how far up you go is. Where is the motion going? And there's two determining factors. And are you able to stay connected to your back anchor that connection that you formed in and your abdominals. When you're connected, your back anchor to the floor. Are you able to maintain that connection through throughout doing the bridge? No matter how high you go, that is priority number one. And priority number two is that when you come up into the bridge, the movement, the excursion that is, has to happen because of physics for your body to be able to come up. Is that movement going into your hips good or is it going into your lower back bad? And you got to be able to have a sense of where is that motion going into? And so you go up as high as you can while that movement is going into your hips. And if it starts going into your low back and your pelvis starts to tilt forward as a result and it's arching your lower back, you should have stopped short before that happened and work at that edge with that, because that means you're losing connection. That means you're losing your back anchor connection, and you work right at that edge, right before and right, just right up into the point where you start losing that connection and you train there and strengthen your connection to challenge yourself and build your connection and strength. So that's how far up you should go. And that changes for everyone. We have very high fitness level people in this program, and we have very low level fitness people in the program who can't even get off the floor. So that's why I cannot say I don't know your level of fitness, but I cannot say exactly in inches or anything like that how you should come up. The second part of your question at the top of the bridge, should I be more on my shoulder blades, ribs completely off the ground? No, your ribs will be partially on the ground. Your back anchor will be off the ground. Your shoulder blades will be mostly on the ground. You're going to want to still be on the top half of your rib cage. So and that's really not the focus is more the connection and the abdominal engagement. So that's what I would want you to think. Be thinking about is Eric is my are my deep core muscles engaged? If your mind is going to. How where am I on my shoulder blades? Then your mind is going to the wrong place. And if you can keep your deep core muscles engaged and your back and your connection and your. And not compromising by letting your lower back arch up and your pelvis tilt forward, then I don't really care how high you come up in the bridge, because you've developed that connection so well that you've earned the ability to do it. But generally, in the beginning, people should stay a little lower than they think to make sure they have that connection. And people early in the program tend to go higher than they should. So if you're going to err on one side, err on the side of staying a little lower. And don't worry about having your full shoulder blades on the ground and even part of your, you know, half of your rib cage. And don't worry about that and just focus on the connection and really build that connection. And then as you have the confidence with that connection, come up a little higher. Another question is also for the the daily five minutes of bridge routine is the intent to hold one bridge for five minutes eventually, or do you go up and down with repetitions? I recommend doing longer holds if you can. If that means 30s, that's great. Build that longer. Hold up while you're able to maintain connection and continuously breathe throughout. Build it up to as high as you can, and if that means you can get up to five minutes eventually with a strong connection and continuous breathing into your lower back and pelvis, then that's amazing. And you're doing really well and you should have very little pain after doing something like that. So that is the goal. But depending on your level of fitness, if it's only 10s or one second or whatever, that's where you're at and that's where you need to work. And the goal is to build up the longevity, the endurance, the stamina of those muscles to stay up longer because you get more benefits from the longer holds than the up and down repetitions. So hopefully that answers your question. And we're down to the last question. And this one is from Howard Howard posted in the Back Anchor Challenge two, which is module four. He says, I decided to do module four for a second time with your tips in mind, and it really helped. I'm feeling like I'm getting stronger and can do it better, but still feel quite a bit of strain on my lower back when doing the back anchor challenge. Almost feels like it's going to snap or something around the bottom of my ribcage when my legs are extended, but I can do it. Okay, Howard, so this is I really want to emphasize this point, and I believe that this was a response to a post I made where I said to progress very slowly and only go at your own pace, where you can maintain a strong connection without compromising your body elsewhere. This is going to I'm going to double down on that answer. I'm going to say this feeling where you feel like your spine is going to snap. That is not a positive feeling, and I don't want you to be going to that point. I don't want you to go to the point where you feel like your spine might snap. So stop short of that, and I think you would benefit yourself by progressing more slowly. And don't extend your legs that far. You will get to the point where you can extend your legs that far without feeling like your spine is going to snap. But you have to build the core stability to be able to stabilize and support your spine to be able to do that. And that takes time. So this is a process that takes a lot of patience. We're not going to go that far. Howard. We're going to just really be patient with the progressing of the leg extensions and stop short of that feeling. You want this to feel good. You want to feel confident. You want to have a strong connection throughout this process. And this is an exercise. The back anchor challenge is an exercise, particularly where you can there's a lot of room for progression and you are in control of that progression. I'm not. How far you extend your legs is as exponential effect on the amount of force being pulled on your spine, so don't extend them as much. I hope that I beat the dead horse there on that. You want this to feel good and strong. Now you say, I noticed I woke up with a bit of lower back soreness for the first time since my early days of the program. After finishing days four and five. I haven't had that since before I started your program. Are these kinds of regressions normal? They are normal when you overdo it, Howard. And it sounds like you overdid it, and then your body communicated that to you the best way it knows how through pain. And so listen to your body and regress the exercise so you don't have regressions in your the way that your body feels. And you will get to that point. But it takes time, it takes patience and it takes. Bit by bit progress over time. So let's let's go into your second part of your question, Howard. It says, do you think it's worth doing a module for a third time or should I go into module five? Howard, I think that you are ready for module five. But when you start module five, as you've noticed with the program, you're not going to stop doing the backpacker challenge. That's going to be part of your daily routine in module five as well. And so you can, you're going to continue practicing this exercise and building upon it simultaneously while while you are learning the new information in module five. And so yes, you're ready for module five, just apply everything. All these concepts of progressing at your own pace to every all the new things that you're learning and you can continue just well, just keep practicing the back anchor challenge simultaneously in your daily routine and apply what I was saying above. And you say, oh, this is a kind of a separate question. I think it says, lastly, I'm noticing that I have a lateral imbalance where my pelvis seems higher on one side than the other. When I take a picture of my back. I think I developed this a long time ago. When do when I do my front acres challenge. I notice that when I extend my left leg and right arm, it is much harder for me than the opposite extensions. Does this cover? Does this course cover these imbalances and how can I correct it? Thanks, Howard. So yes, the course does cover these imbalances and it's actually covering it in the front anchors challenge. The fact that you're noticing a difference is addressing the problem. And so with that exercise in particular, you're going to want to spend more time and more effort training the side that you have more challenge with. So the weaker side, you want to train more and that and train that up to the point where it's equal to the stronger side. And that is addressing the imbalance right there. And then later in the program, when we get into module eight, module nine, you're going to start addressing left to right imbalances specifically. But we have to get the front to back imbalances taken care of first. And so that's the first several modules of the program. Then we address side to side imbalances. And so we will get there. But it's very important to get the front to back imbalances hip flexors, abdominals, lower back muscles, glutes and the upper body posture syndrome in order first. And then there's a lot more advantage in addressing these left to right imbalances. But for now, how do you correct it? Is any exercise you see, it's a unilateral exercise. It's not symmetrical on both sides like the front anchors challenge single leg bridge, which you'll get to eventually. And anything else that's like asymmetrical, you'll want to train the side that you have more difficulty with the weaker side and train it more and more focus and more time training it to get it equal with the stronger side. And that is addressing the imbalance. And that's the strategy I recommend. That's a great question. Thank you for asking it. So that was the last question for today. And we went about an hour and twenty. We're going to be at an hour twenty five minutes on today's stream. So yeah, pretty typical length. And I just want to thank everyone for being here. And if you enjoyed the stream, hit that subscribe button and help spread the word that there's a solution to back pain and help get the word out to people who are suffering and don't know about this solution. So in conclusion, for today's topic, can exercising hurt lower back pain? And the answer is absolutely yes. It's not about which exercises you do, it's about how you do them. And so exercising can equally help lower back pain if you do them with core based movement, with a strong core connection. So it's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. And I dive deep into that in the stream called Best Exercises for Lower Back Pain, which we have linked to in the video. So check that out and thank you guys for being here live. Thank you, Catherine, Nathan, and anyone else that's here live. And as we walk away from this stream and the computer, go do something that's healthy for your body. And until next time, get down on the floor and connect to your core. Thanks again and I'll see you guys next week. Take care.
