Get-ups went very well – I’ve realized that the key movement is relaxing the neck, and pulling the lat (armpit muscle) down and connecting that energy with the lower abdomen. Doing that along with pushing the bell away through the elbow makes it seem lighter by half! Make sure if you ever take up this exercise, you learn about and practice intrabdominal pressure or you may get hurt!
BTW, if you are not familiar with a Turkish Get Up, check out this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vhJza-2xiI (here he is using a dumbell vs. a kettlebell, but it is the same exercise).
In just 2 months I have more than doubled my overall body strength using this exercise (started at 18 lb, moved up to 26, now at 35, will soon move to 44) and swings (started at 18 for about 30 sec, now at 44 for 10 min). And I have not injured my back – definitely had some back aches and pains as I made mistakes, but by proceeding slowly and carefully, was able to correct my form/intensity errors before they became injuries.
Note that these are whole body exercises, which in my opinion is the most effective way to strengthen one’s back. The body is meant to move with all parts in a synchronized movement pattern; get strong in those basic patterns and your back should be much less injury prone in every day life.
Also finally getting my upper back and shoulders to turn on when doing halos (a shoulder warmup exercise) – goal today is to make sure my lats are firing when doing swings – without tensing my neck and upper traps. I predict that this will make my swings much easier and smoother. Here is a great demonstration of swings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0jalJ-3e7U&feature=channel_page. Note that while it appears to be an arm exercise, it is actually a hip/glute exercise – actually it hits the whole posterior kinetic chain – which in my case (and I believe for lots of back pain folks) – actually forgot how to function properly.
And the sciatic/glute pain is now gone – once more, working through the pain (so long as the pain does not get worse during the exercise), vs. complete rest, seems to work much better. Also, doing deep yoga breathing while in child’s pose helped a lot. If you have a bad back, please do yourself a favor and take some yoga classes, if for no other reason than to learn how to breathe into selected muscles to help them relax!
Get-ups went very well – I’ve realized that the key movement is relaxing the neck, and pulling the lat (armpit muscle) down and connecting that energy with the lower abdomen. Doing that along with pushing the bell away through the elbow makes it seem lighter by half! Make sure if you ever take up this exercise, you learn about and practice intrabdominal pressure or you may get hurt!
BTW, if you are not familiar with a Turkish Get Up, check out this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vhJza-2xiI (here he is using a dumbell vs. a kettlebell, but it is the same exercise).
In just 2 months I have more than doubled my overall body strength using this exercise (started at 18 lb, moved up to 26, now at 35, will soon move to 44) and swings (started at 18 for about 30 sec, now at 44 for 10 min). And I have not injured my back – definitely had some back aches and pains as I made mistakes, but by proceeding slowly and carefully, was able to correct my form/intensity errors before they became injuries.
Note that these are whole body exercises, which in my opinion is the most effective way to strengthen one’s back. The body is meant to move with all parts in a synchronized movement pattern; get strong in those basic patterns and your back should be much less injury prone in every day life.
Also finally getting my upper back and shoulders to turn on when doing halos (a shoulder warmup exercise) – goal today is to make sure my lats are firing when doing swings – without tensing my neck and upper traps. I predict that this will make my swings much easier and smoother. Here is a great demonstration of swings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0jalJ-3e7U&feature=channel_page. Note that while it appears to be an arm exercise, it is actually a hip/glute exercise – actually it hits the whole posterior kinetic chain – which in my case (and I believe for lots of back pain folks) – actually forgot how to function properly.
And the sciatic/glute pain is now gone – once more, working through the pain (so long as the pain does not get worse during the exercise), vs. complete rest, seems to work much better. Also, doing deep yoga breathing while in child’s pose helped a lot. If you have a bad back, please do yourself a favor and take some yoga classes, if for no other reason than to learn how to breathe into selected muscles to help them relax!