Get “Back” to the Gym – Back Exercises

Unfortunately, most work environments today involve sitting for hours on end at a desk. In addition to limiting our daily activity, desk jobs allow postural muscles to relax and weaken over time until they poorly support joints. It is easy to allow your chair at your desk to hold up all of your weight, shutting down the muscles that hold you upright. If you have a desk job, when cheap jerseys you go to the gym you should compensate for your lack of postural muscle use in addition to your lack of general movement. By making chef an effort to cheap jerseys consciously sit with good posture at your desk and including a few postural back exercises on a consistent weekly basis, you can prevent many postural problems and back ailments that are caused simply by muscle weakness.The major postural muscles of the back include the trapezius, the rhomboids, the deltoids, the lats, the erector spinae, and the abdominal muscles. An appropriate resistance training program will involve using all of the major postural muscles directly or indirectly. The trapezius, rhomboids, deltoids, and lats all assist in retracting the humerus and scapula, keeping our shoulders pulled back and our shoulder blades close to our body. By doing rowing exercises such as seated rows, and pull down exercises, such as lat pull-downs, these shoulder retracting muscles will be effectively exercised. By using a wide grip and concentrating on pinching the shoulder blades together during rowing exercises, the trapezius, rhomboids, and rear deltoid will be forced to do their job of pulling the shoulders back, creating strength that can be lost by being immobile during desk jobs.

The erector spinae “erect” the spine keeping our shoulders from being rolled forward in a slouching position. The erector spinae can be effectively strengthened by doing low back extensions on a stability ball. Start by a doing a basic low back extension on the stability ball with your body weight. Lay over the ball with the ball positioned under your stomach. With your hands under your chin, shape your body and shoulders to the ball. Raise the shoulders and body up until your back and shoulders are straight. Shape back down to the ball and repeat. Keep the motion slow and controlled. I use the 3/2 count. Three seconds to lower your weight, shaping to the ball, and two seconds to raise your shoulders and back to a flat position. By pacing slowly, you will be lifting the resistance of your body weight instead of using momentum to move your weight. After you have built some strength in this motion over a few workouts, you can progress to a more challenging motion. While laying over the ball, lift one arm and that arm’s opposite leg while balancing on the other arm and leg. Still, shape your body to the ball and slowly lift the opposing arm and leg together until they are in a straight line. Shape your body slowly back down to the ball while lowering your leg. You should perform a few sets of 10-20 reps of these exercises on a weekly basis. If you are doing full body workouts, low back exercises can be performed during every weight training workout. During a split/muscle building type program, these exercises should be performed on the day you work your back. Once you have developed some strength doing low back exercises with your body weight, you can hold a weight under your chin (or hold a weight in your lifting arm during the one arm/one foot low back extension) to increase the demand of the exercise, thus building more strength.

Having strength to support the cheap nba jerseys front of your spine is dependent on working your abdominal muscles. When you are de-conditioned you may feel the weakness of your low back muscles during abdominal exercises (your low back muscles may “burn” while working your abs). This is because low back muscles partly support your spine during abdominal exercises, especially when the abdominal exercise is unstable (such as a crunch on an unstable stability ball). Post Thus, abdominal exercises should be a part of your exercise program to help encourage back strength.

Our core muscles are important for supporting our spine and preventing back problems. If postural exercises such as low back extensions and abdominal exercises are not included in your resistance training program, then it is time to fit them into your routine. Prevention through fitness is better than trying to fix a problem created from neglect because of too much time behind a desk and not enough time spent in the gym.