Hey everybody Mike Uhrlaub with another episode of Power Your Life. Today we will go over another movement for key muscle groups that can help heal your back pain. But of course, before we begin I want to share a little story with you.
A couple of weeks ago, my son Garrett was hiking up at the Hitchcock Nature Center again. I talked about going there with my family back in November. Anyways, Garret and I was walking through the area of the park where they had done a controlled burn. It was like walking on another planet! Everything was desolate and bare where they had burned the brush and it was really eerie.
Garrett asked me, “why did they do this? Why are there controlled burns?” I’ve always thought you do it to revitalize things, but I couldn’t really explain it to him. I really wanted to. It really had me thinking about what other reasons there may be for doing controlled burns. I decided to do a little research and according to an article by The National Geographic, controlled burning is done for a number of reasons. One is it helps the forest heal and keeps it healthy by getting rid of dead leaves, tree limbs, and other debris to prevent wildfires in the future. We kind of knew this already. It gets rid of the dead underbrush so there’s not as much kindling if there’s a lightning storm.
But… I also learned a few things too…
It helps reduce insects and destroy any invasive plants. The second thing I learned was fire can be rejuvenating to the forest by returning nutrients to the soil, through the vegetation ashes. It also opens up additional sunlight space in the forest which helps the young plants and trees to grow and develop. This made me think about how a controlled burn in the forest is a lot like how we have to make room in our lives for growth. In order to progress and grow in your life, you’re going to have to make room for growth. Often it means getting rid of the good stuff in order to make room for the great.
All growth requires space; It doesn’t matter if the growth is emotional, physical, or spiritual needs, there has to be room for the new. That means you’re going to have to make room by cleaning out your “closets” so to speak. In order to make room, you’re going to have to let go of some things in your life. There’s only 24 hours in a day and you should be sleeping at least 7-8 of those hours. So, you’re going to have to take some things off your schedule. You’re going to have to make room in your mind and make space in your life by cleaning out your life closet. Often this entails letting go of the things, thoughts, and habits that no longer serve you.
Letting Go Helps You Heal
I’m speaking from experience and know this is often hard to do. It can be extremely scary to let go of things you know are still good. That requires faith that you will be able to replace these things with something even better. Although there are no guarantees in life, if you don’t make room for progress and growth, your life will never improve or change.
Now! Let’s get ready to change your back pain with another amazing movement.
Remember the movements that heal back pain are the ones hitting your key muscle groups that contribute to back issues. You’ve must work multiple muscle groups at the same time. You need movements that prime your nervous system and are capable of creating a structural change in your body.
The Movement to Heal Back Pain
Today, we’re going to focus on one of the best movements that I found to strengthen your glutes.
To be more specific…. Your Gluteus Maximus also known as your butt muscles. The term I prefer is the glute max. This muscle helps extend your hip, helps bring your leg backward, and stabilizes the spine through the hip.
The movement I’m going to show you engages your body’s natural synergies and nervous system. At the same time…. It’s going to use multiple joints and movements in multiple planes. It’s really simple and easy to do at home or the gym. Yet, it’s going to be very challenging and effective if you do it the right way.
Before we go into this movement, let’s review the principles of multifunctional movements.
Principles to Keep in Mind
- Never hold your breath. Make sure you breathe because it is extremely important. We did an episode a couple of weeks ago on breathing. If you are unsure, go check it out here!
- Always keep your abdominal muscles and midsection engaged. Simply pull the belly button in towards the spine and hold that position while you are doing the exercise.
- Never force into your primary pain. You may get some muscle soreness created by doing the movement and that is good. But an increase in your primary pain level is not okay. If this happens, discontinue that movement.
- Don’t do anything to aggravate your primary pain. A correct movement will decrease the pain, not make it worse.
- Make sure you challenge yourself. Perform this movement to the point where you feel at LEAST 40% challenged. If you’re not, it’s pointless and you wont gain much from it.
Donkey Kicks
- A great movement to stretch out your hip flexors, glutes, and psoas muscle. Strengthens your abdominals, engages core, and improves balance. Don’t worry if you get winded, you want a little cardiovascular workout. This move requires you to stand on one leg, so having something/someone to help stabilize you at first is extremely helpful.
- Food for thought…. Your glute and psoas muscles are the key muscles that create backpain… If you heal those than you are on your way to preventing back pain.
- Things you might need: A heavy bag, door jam or basement support pole for balance support. Make sure what you use is stabilized. If you us a heavy bag you need somebody to stabilize it for you.
- Start off with 20 Seconds on each side with about a 15-20 Seconds rest between each one totaling 3 Sets. You want to try and do as many reps as you can within that time frame. Just make sure you are keeping form the entire time. Form is more important than the amount of reps.
- Ultimately, you want to build up to 40 Second reps with 40 second breaks. Do this up to 3 times once a day.
- This move is just like a donkey, horse, or cow that kicks behind them. It is what you are going to do. This creates a contact force when you hit the bag and pushes it back through the body. In turn, your muscles contract and stabilize.
Too Far Away | Too Close | Perfect Stance
Step 1: Stand with your back to the
heavy bag and tighten your belly
button and abdominals.
You want to make sure you have a good distance from
the bag. Not too close and
not too far.
Step 2: Kick back just enough to make contact with the bag.
Main Focus: Work on your speed and the force of the kicks. Work up to kicking a littler harder and a little faster. Speed and force will help increase the contractions of your muscles, which is what helps strengthen your glutes.
If you are needing any extra help fixing your back pain, you can sign up for our back pain, breakthrough exam here.
As always, I’m going to leave you with a thought-provoking quote from Warren W. Wiersbe.
“Real contentment must come from within. You and I cannot change or control the world around us, but we can change and control the world within us.”
I’m going to let you ruminate on that one for a while.
Until next time. Power Your Life and keep moving forward!
