The Science Lab is a combination of nutrition and strength coaches that help you become the best version of yourself. Click here for more information.
In general I am not a fan of mobility work and I don’t do a lot of it to fix times I hurt myself (I certainly believe in some level of active stretching for warming up muscles). The reason is simple, if I can’t do a movement correctly with full range of motion I modify to a movement I can do without pain. That said you can’t always do that and sometimes you find yourself doing a movement incorrectly, that happens to the best of us. Today was a great example of what I am talking about for me and it reminded me why I rarely have lower back pain. One tricky movement for me is Toes 2 Bar, the reason is simple, my hips are weak and I lack flexibility in the back of my legs for my toes to actually touch the bar. Typically I modify to a movement very similar to the bounce you often see but I come up just short of the bar. Under the stress of today’s WOD I lost my mojo and found myself doing the “swing” you see a lot of athletes doing to reach the bar. I am not a fan of this because it puts a lot of strain on your weaker muscles in your lower back. The primary mover for this movement is supposed to be your hip flexors which are some of the strongest muscles in your body.
Similar could be said for deadlifts and really a lot of movements but I will use the deadlift as an example. The primary movers for the deadlift are your hamstrings and glutes, you should be driving from your heels. If your set up is real high and you aren’t keeping your butt low you are asking your weak muscles to do work they aren’t supposed to be doing. So if your deadlift is a lagging lift for you ask yourself, are the muscles I am supposed to be using the muscles doing the work?
The best answer to pain is almost always to strengthen a weakness. Most lower back pain is a result of asking those, relatively small muscles, to do work they aren’t supposed to do. Fix that and that goes a long way to getting rid of your lower back pain.
Eat To Perform 