Last week we touched on the importance of mobilizing the hips/glutes and thoracic spine to improve lower back pain (To read more about that, scroll all the way down below this article). Once you’ve experienced improvement in your lower back discomfort by implementing the Quadruped Mobility Flow I laid out, it’s now time to take the next step- which is adding in MUSCLE ACTIVATION sequences to your routine.
The perfect storm for any joint pain is tight and weak muscles. This phenomenon is particularly true with the lower back. If your glutes are tight and weak (which is often the case), combined with tight and weak upper back muscles, then you’re a sure-fire candidate to have chronic pain in the lumbar spine region.
Even though I’m about to lay out an activation sequence, it is absolutely imperative to never lose sight of the importance of mobility in conjunction with muscle activation. These sequences will certainly activate muscles surrounding your lower back that are dormant, however, you must keep your hips and thoracic spine mobile in order to continue dissipating your back discomfort.
How Can I Activate Dormant Muscles?
Mini-bands have become more common place in gyms across the country in recent years. However, I question whether individuals realize the true value in using a band. Performing mini-band exercises is not going to build muscle or vastly increase strength numbers in your squats, deadlifts or bench presses. They will not magically melt fat off your body just because your heart is pounding during the set. What mini-band use is going to do though is bulletproof your body by activating underutilized muscles.
Using bands will allow you to specifically target muscles that traditional resistance training (with free weights or cables) fail to activate. The key to proper mini-band use is: leave your ego at the door. Keep in mind, this is about muscle activation, so the tension should not be a competition with anyone else except yourself. If you have extremely under-active muscles in your glutes and upper back, a tighter band will merely result in movement compensation, instead of proper muscle activation.
We live in a more is better society, that has been highlighted by various fads in the fitness industry that unfortunately create a “keeping up with the Jones’ ” mentality. I can unequivocally say though that more is NOT better when we’re dealing with improving back discomfort. Therefore, it is imperative to choose a band with the proper tension FOR YOU that allows activation solely in the muscles that should be getting activated. In other words- if any of the exercise combinations I lay out below cause any discomfort in the lumbar spine, it is almost certainly not a question of form or exercise selection- it is a matter of needing to reduce the tension, and after a certain point potentially reducing the volume as well…therefore, I’ll say it one more time- if you want long term lower back health, leave your ego at the door when activating your muscles with a mini-band!
Why Do the Glutes & Upper Back Impact Lower Back Health?
The Glute musculature (glute maximus, medius and minimus) are directly responsible for hip extension and hip abduction. It’s most important function as it relates to lower back health though is it assists in the support and stabilization of the lumbar spine. Basically when the glutes are extremely under-active – which is EXTREMELY common based on the amount of sitting we do- activities that would normally be loaded through your butt go right to your lower back. The perfect example of this is when an individual feels lower back pain while squatting. A squat of any kind should load up the quads and glutes, and if the glutes aren’t firing properly, the compression of the squat will undoubtedly flare up the lower back.
Activating muscles in the upper back is equally important to improving long term lower back health as well. When an individual has poor posture from prolonged periods of sitting at a desk or being on a technological device, they not only have tight muscles surrounding their thoracic; they also have weak muscles in the rear delts, rhomboids, scapular and lats.
Weak muscles in the upper back makes it difficult for individuals maintain proper posture- thus keeping pressure on your lower back constantly. The more we can activate the small muscles behind your shoulders, the easier it’ll be over time to maintain proper posture. Until you mobilize and strengthen the muscles surrounding the thoracic spine though, it’ll be extremely difficult to achieve consistently good posture.
The Exercises
Lower Body
Mini-band Foot Fire
Mini-band Lateral Walks
Mini-band Monster Walks
Mini-band Diagonal Walks
The Sequence
For Lower Body, perform the set as follows:
- Mini-Band Foot Fire (Left foot moves) – 10 seconds
- Lateral Walks (Left foot Leads)- 10 steps
- Mini-Band Foot Fire (Right foot moves)- 10 seconds
- Lateral Walks (Right foot leads)- 10 steps
- Monster Walks- 10 steps up & 10 steps back
- Diagonal Walks- 10 steps up & 10 steps back
*Perform for 2-4 rounds depending on what your training goals are and whether this is an extension of the warm up or the workout itself. Start with 10-20 seconds rest in between moves (especially if you start feeling tightness in your lower back), but work towards zero rest in between exercises. Always rest for about 30-45 seconds between rounds. For best results perform this sequence minimally 3 times per week.
Upper Body
In Fronts/Behinds
Band Pull Aparts
Touchdowns
The Sequence
For Upper Body perform the set as follows:
- In Fronts & Behinds- 10 reps each
- Pull Aparts- 10 reps
- Touchdowns- 10 reps (slow and steady tempo)
*Similarly, perform 2-4 rounds based on your goals and workout days. You can even perform this sequence as a super-set with your lower body work, and basically bounce back and forth between the 2 with no actual rest in between. To start though, give yourself the same 10-20 second rest in between exercises- only if needed. Then work towards no rest at all. Same as the lower body, for best results perform this sequence minimally 3 times per week.
**To make both sequences more challenging, increase the reps BEFORE the tension. Once you’ve got to 15 for every exercise- using perfect form and without feeling any negative pain in the back- then it’s time to increase the tension of the band. Be sure to not jump right from 10 to 15 reps either. Do it incrementally by inserting 12, 13, and/or 14 rep sequences in between.
Final Thoughts
In a perfect world, we’d show up to the gym, hit a dynamic warm-up followed by my hip-mobility flow, then this activation series, then we’d jump into strength work. Using this template to create your workouts will yield improvements in lower back pain. Remember to never lose sight of the importance of mobilization and activation together.
Once the back starts feeling good, sometimes we lose sight of what got us feeling good in the first place. If you stop the mobility work, combined with the activation of your glutes and upper back, it’s only a matter of time before you’re right back at square 1. Sacrifice time spent on the gym floor doing exercises that are probably doing you more harm than good anyway, for more time spent in a corner with a yoga mat doing your mobility and activation work before your strength work.
It’s not sexy. It’s not going to break the internet with likes on social media. BUT IT WORKS- if done consistently. I greatly encourage you to fully commit to healing your lower back, and follow the mobility and activation flow I’ve laid out. Put your blinders on and ignore whatever else is going on in the gym, and turn your sole attention to YOU.
Yours in Fitness and Health,
TC
Your Final Reward Will Be Heartache and Tears, If You’ve Cheated the Guy in the Glass.
Cotterell Training Systems 
This is why I started with yellow to green to blue and came back to yellow. I realized I shouldn’t be hurting with higher tension. Using the yellow, I still feel my muscles working without killing myself.
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