All our exercises follow these five simple spinal mobility exercises guidelines:

Movements should be unilateral. Move in one direction only when engaging spinal mobility exercises or back strengthening exercises. This way the disc material is less stressed, as moving in one direction allows for a relatively big compression area. As a contrast multi-lateral motions such as trunk rotation while flexing the spine forward, would reduce the compression area to a small surface area, so the pressure on that part of the disc would be very high and potentially damaging the tissue.

Avoid hyper-extension of the spine. The anatomical shape of the vertebrae allows for forward flexion and extension. If you try to hyper-extend or bend over backwards, the pressure on the bone structure is greatly increased and cannot be absorbed by the disk material. Anything beyond straight is a hyper-extension. This includes dropping you head back while sitting, bending your chest backward, raising or pushing the chest up while lying on the floor etc. Avoid spinal mobility exercises that recommend any kindof hyper extension as they can often do more harm than good.

Engage the muscles of the core before engaging the musculature of the arm and legs in any strenuous activity (lifting, pushing, pulling).

Use as much musculature as possible to distribute the load and take the strain away from the joint. By building up the musculature, the strain can be alleviated off the joint.

Ensure you keep breathing throughout all exercises you engage in. Never hold you breath while engaging in strengthening exercises.