Category Archives: stomach exercises

Back strengthening exercises – a few words on intensity

Back strengthening exercises should aim to improve muscle tone if they aim to help people with back problems and back pain.

A lot of people feel, they only get a good workout, when “it hurts”. Short spurts of maximum intensity are perceived as more effective than medium intensity exercises over a longer period of time. Whether or not this is really the case is currently a source of hot debate in the science and research world. Some research suggests, the time a muscle is engaged has a better training effect than the actual strain intensity. My words of wisdom here are based on my experience working with people in my program and focusing on core and back strengthening exercises. There is no problem pushing the intensity level provided proper technique is maintained. So, while you can up the intensity level by using weights doing core and back strengthening exercises, at no point should the core stability or joint position be compromised. And you should spend time in the position itself.

You need a bit of both – medium to high intensity exercises which are performed slowly and in a controlled manner. The aim of any exercise program should be to improve your health and fitness. I encourage all my course participants to evaluate any back strengthening exercise program or other kind of activity themselves. Are the exercises controlled and are the movements done in a manner without compromising the joints or muscle capabilities? See our guidelines for more information.

Although weights can be a useful tool when exercising, they are not necessary for an exercise to be effective. By altering the body position and increasing the leverage, any of the back strengthening exercises we do, can be made sufficiently difficult, so that you get a training effect. However, when properly used, weights can make a back strengthening exercises program that little bit more varied and interesting with higher levels of intensity attained that little bit quicker.

The ball is a great tool when doing a back strengthening exercises program. There is an entire set of stability ball exercises which will strengthen your core and back. We also use a number of small weights and do a lot of resistance training using a Thera-Band.

Back strengthening exercises – squats – active sitting program part VIII

Back strengthening exercises are easily done while in work. Just taking a few minutes throughout your working day can make a huge difference in your well being. Sitting on a ball is one of the easiest ways to keep your back active and healthy. The ball is an important component of our active sitting program.

The following exercise is one of the most effective back strengthening exercises. It will exercise your legs, stomach and back all at the same time.

Keep you stomach muscles tight by pulling your stomach in throughout the exercise. Make sure you keep on breathing.

Squat

1. Have your knees at least shoulder width apart, place your ankles directly beneath your knees on the floor.

2. Place your hands on the edge of the table and lift your buttocks off the ball, keeping the knees over the ankles Your stomach muscles should be tight while you keep breathing. Ensure you are not leaning on the table top.

3. Make sure the ball hasn’t rolled away before you sit back down. If you find the ball rolls away you might want to use a ball base.

• Repeat 3 to 5 times

Variation for strength:
1. As before have your knees over your ankles and bring your upper body forward.
2. Place your hands on the outside of the ball next to your hips.
3. Bring your upper body forward until you are able to lift your buttocks off the top of the ball. Check your knees are still above your ankles. Hold for 5 to 10 seconds.
• Repeat 3 to 5 times

Back strengthening exercises, stomach exercises and spinal mobility exercises – active sitting program part V

In the previous posts you learned about simple stretching, mobility and back strengthening exercises. You were introduced to an important concept when engaging in back strengthening exercises. It is important to include stomach exercises into your workout to help regain a good muscle balance. Please be sure to review the general guidelines about spinal movement before continuing with the next set of exercises.

Pelvic Mobility sideways:

Start by sitting on the ball resting your hands on the table in front of you.

1. Keep the shoulders still and rest the wrists on the table while rolling the ball sideways.
2. Lift one cheek of your buttocks of the ball while rolling sideways.
3. Roll the ball over to the other side.
• Repeat 10 times

Pelvic lifts sideways:

1. As above roll the ball away to one side.
2. When lifting the pelvis up sideways, hold this position for about 5 to 10 seconds. This exercise will strengthen the muscles of you hips and lower back. It’s one of the more subtle yet effective and important back strengthening exercises.
3. Repeat the exercise on the other side. • Repeat 3 to 5 times on both sides

Variation for strength:

1. Start as above, lifting one side of the pelvis of the ball.
2. Let go of the table and reach with the arm/hand towards the ground on the side you are lifting the pelvis. Hold for 5 to 10 seconds and repeat on the other side.

Neck stretches variation:

1. Start as above, lifting one side of the pelvis of the ball.
2. Let go of the table and reach with the arm/hand towards the ground on the side you are lifting the pelvis. While keeping your head facing forward drop you ear towards your should. Hold the stretch for about 15 seconds and repeat on the other side.

Back strengthening exercises should include stomach exercises – active sitting program part IV

Back strengthening exercises should include stomach exercises. Why? Most people who suffer from back problems have a muscle imbalance between the muscles of the front of their body and the muscles of the back. Their stomach muscles tend to be week and lacking tone while the muscles of the back tend to be tight. So, if you want to exercise for your back it is important to do stomach ecerises, too.

In the previous posts you were introduced to simple stretching, mobility and strengthening exercises. Please be sure to review the general guidelines about back strengthening exercises and stomach exercises before continuing with the next set of exercises.

Stomach Exercises while sitting:

Start by sitting upright on the ball.

1. Tighten the muscles in your stomach by pulling your stomach in. Clench the cheeks of you buttocks together and hold these muscles tight throughout the exercise. The buttocks muscles are an important part of your back muscles. Engaging them by clenching them is an important part of any back strengthening exercise program. Make sure you keep breathing throughout theses stomach exercises.

2. Start rolling the ball forward as you curve your lower back, moving your lower back towards the ball. Make sure you curve the lower back onto the ball as oppose to leaning your upper back backward.

3. Bring your upper body back a little bit. Hold this position for 5 to 10 seconds while breathing normally.
• Repeat 3 to 5 times

Variation for more stomach strength:

To make above exercise more strenuous, you can let go of the table top and bring your hands to the shoulders. To push it even harder bring the hands behind the head and/or straighten the arms towards the ceiling. As before ensure you are breathing normally throughout the exercise.

• Repeat the exercise 3 to 5 times

Are you looking for Back Strengthening Exercises?

On this site you will find a comprehensive back strengthening exercises program. Next to back strengthening exercises we include stretches and mobility exercises for the back in particular stretches for lower back pain and neck tension. We have been teaching this program for over fifteen years. Our back strengthening exercises have helped our program participants to reduce and eliminate their back problems.

We also have found in order to get rid of back pain and other back problems people need to know what causes them. When you know how your back problems are caused you can learn to prevent them. You will also know what kind of back strengthening exercises are good (see our movement and exercise guidelines). You quickly realise that some so called back exercises are not so good. Unfortunately there are a lot of back damaging activities and exercise programs out there claiming to be good for the back. Once you know how to avoid back damaging activities you can re-engage because you will know how to do these activities in a way that they don’t cause you problems.

Back strengthening exercises are a really good idea and a lifestyle choice if you have an otherwise sedentary lifestyle or are engaged in activities that caused your back problems. Sometimes it takes as little as 15 minutes of our back strengthening exercises every couple of days to balance out the acitivities of your life that might have caused you problems before.

All our participants have successfully got rid of their back problems. they are using our back strengthening exercise program. With it they have regained good core stability.

Core stability describes the correct functioning of those muscles, mainly the hips, stomach and back musculature, responsible for uprightness and stability of the upper body.

If muscles in your stomach are weak and/or your back muscles are tense and tight weakness in these areas can result in misalignment of the spine. This can cause discomfort and pain, often in the upper and lower back. It can also lead to increased wear and tear causing irreversible damage to the in the spine and nervous system.

Therefore a central part of the program we do is to provide exercises to re-establish and maintain a good muscle balance.

However, we strongly believe it is important to learn about good movement practices. That way we can ensure that not only is our exercise program is done correctly — but any other activity we engage in, too!

•information about the source of back problems and the structure and functionality of the spine

•simple guidelines on how to move in a back friendly way on a day-to-day basis and during exercising

•a comprehensive set of back strengthening exercises to re-establish a healthy musculature which supports the spine

Our back strengthening exercise program is for men and women of all ages. We use an exercise ball for many of the back strengthening exercises. Just sitting on a ball, much like you would sit on a chair is a back strengthening exercise.

active sitting – stomach exercises and back strengthening exercises for the ball

Flying Form

back strengthening exercises and more