Maintaining Spinal Health (Part 1)

Recently, I was a guest speaker on spinal health at Inside Out Chiropractic where my gym is located. I spoke about how exercise could both maintain spinal health and in some cases eliminate low back pain. In addition, I demonstrated safe ways to repetitively lift light objects and how to lift heavy objects.

Spinal health was a good topic for me. I wasn’t good at any of the team sports when I was young, so I didn’t get a lot of physical activity. It wasn’t until I was in grade 7 where participation in volleyball and basketball were mandatory at our school that I started to enjoy physical activity. I also added weight training and track and field (400 m) that year.

Because I wasn’t very active early I lost some basic mobility and stability. When I began strength training the exercises I performed focused solely on the muscles on the front side of my body. So, by the time I was finished high school I had decent strength and I was a good runner, but by low back hurt when I slept (and sometimes when running), I couldn’t touch my toes, and I had difficulty sitting up straight for long periods.

Why Is Spinal Health Important?

Spinal health is important firstly because of the nerves branching off from your spinal cord. A vertebra that’s out of place or poor posture can pinch these nerves causing radiating pain. Moreover, damage to any of the spinal structures (e.g. discs, ligaments, or vertebrae) can have pain associated with it. While this pain in itself is unpleasant pain alters muscle tone and movement strategies. That is, some muscles develop increased tension, while others become inhibited/weak. There are short-term benefits to this but long-term consequences such as more pain from overuse or decreased performance.

Keys to Maintaining Spinal Health

In order to maintain or improve spinal health we need to work on number of things:

Posture

Mobility and Stability

Fundamental Movements

Strength and Conditioning

Technique

While each of these is important to spinal health the qualities higher on the list have an effect on those lower on the list.

Important Notes

If you experience pain you need to get it checked out by a healthcare professional. The healthcare professional can accurately diagnose your pain and place you on the proper treatment plan. They can also provide you with a list of contraindicated exercises, which may include some of the exercises in this series of posts. This is important as the exercise that helped eliminate Steve’s low back pain could exacerbate yours. Furthermore, manual therapy is often required along with exercise for a successful outcome.

Part 1: Posture

Good posture is important for spinal health as previously mentioned in the introduction. Moreover, posture affects muscle tone and how we breathe, which indirectly affects the other keys to maintaining spinal health. Some common postures are a rounded upper back/forward head and an arched back/anterior pelvic tilt.

According to the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) created by Ron Hruska, posture can be improved by spending time in the right position (and avoiding the wrong positions), improving breathing, and performing various exercises to work on your deficiencies.  

Spending time in the right position improves posture, but it takes a long time. Be patient. If you have the posture issues listed earlier you can achieve the right position by lying on your back with your feet up as shown in the PRI video below. This brings your head into alignment and reduces the arch in the low back without having to work at it. I like to read from this position.

We also need to avoid the wrong positions. Avoid sitting for too long especially in a slouched position or with your head protruding forward. The amount of compressive force on the lumbar spine is 11 times greater when seated than when lying down, but it’s only three times greater when standing (McGill, 2007). However, some people are required to sit for long periods for work or school. In this case, Dr. Stuart McGill suggests that you constantly change your sitting position to alter the stress on your back and to frequently stand and take a moment to reach as tall as you can. Another good idea would be to limit the amount of time of spend wearing high heeled shoes.

Improving breathing often speeds up the process of improving posture. We want to be belly breathing almost exclusively while at rest gaining assistance by raising the chest up and out as we work harder. We want to avoid shrugging the shoulders when we breathe.

The easiest way to learn belly breathing is through crocodile breathing. Perform for up to 10min at a time. Be careful when you get up just in case you’re light-headed.

Expand your belly as you inhale using the floor for feedback.

For those who have an excessive arch in their low back PRI’s balloon breathing exercises work well. I’ve found using a balloon to be the most effective way of performing these exercises, but resisting your breath with a straw or pursed lips works well too.   

Using your legs lift yourself up slightly so that the low back is gently pressed into the floor. Inhale fully through your nose and allow your breath to expand your belly. Next, exhale fully (try for 10 sec), which will cause a contraction in your abdominal muscles.

Posture can be bettered through improved breathing, maintaining the right position, and various exercises (introduced later). Improved posture is key to maintaining a healthy spine.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt
Pratt's Pro Fitness

The Problem with Nutrition Information

Nutrition is a highly debated topic and part of this reason is due to the misrepresentation of scientific research. In the end, if we tried to eliminate every food we’ve been told is bad for us there wouldn’t be much left to eat. The key is to focus on eating high-quality food.

Nutrition Science

Ideally, our nutrition information should come from randomized controlled studies (RCTs) from reputable scientific journals. These journals have a peer-review process that helps to prevent bad science from being published. An RCT administers an eating protocol to one group (the experimental group), while another group continues to eat normally (the control group) and the results are compared. Other groups of researchers then try to verify these results on different populations and under different circumstances. After a number of papers have been published, someone will compile the results of these studies into a meta-analysis or write a review paper on the subject. This helps eliminate some of the bad science that has slipped through the cracks and increases the odds that the original findings weren’t due to chance.

Instead, we tend to get our nutrition information from articles written by those who don’t understand the science or by those who aren’t interested in research that contradicts their beliefs. These articles tend to be based on research using observational data. In observational research an experiment hasn’t been conducted. Data is compiled based on the results of questionnaires. This research is dependent on your ability to remember how you’ve been eating for the last year or so. It turns out that people tend to think they eat much less and exercise much more than they think they do. However, the goal of observational research isn’t to make policies but to generate hypotheses that can then be tested through RCTs.  

If we combine all of the ideas from the various nutrition camps into one list it means we should try to limit our intake of carbs, fats (especially saturated fats), meat (especially red meat), dairy, grains, legumes, soy, and foods high in cholesterol. What’s left?

What these groups tend to forget is that food quality is important. Even in the scientific literature this often isn’t controlled. Thus we fall into the trap of believing statements such as “red meat is worse for your health than smoking.” Grass-fed beef and fast-food hamburger come from the same creature, but should they really be lumped together into the same category? If you dig a little deeper you’ll find that every cell in your body requires cholesterol, saturated fat is required for building certain key hormones, and carbs are a high-energy fuel source that suppress cortisol and also play a role in thyroid function. This is not to say that there aren’t individual differences; some people have celiac disease or are lactose intolerant or process carbs better than others. However, we need to start by shifting our focus from highly processed foods to natural foods before we should start to worry about minor issues such as macronutrient ratios or whether or not we should be drinking cows’ milk.  

The healthiest foods usually don't have labels proclaiming their health benefits.   

What’s the Difference?

Processed foods differ from natural whole foods in that they are made to taste better and last longer. While this sounds great it comes at a cost. In the act of processing food much of the vitamin and mineral content is lowered while the fibre and omega-3 fatty acids are removed. Sugar is then added for flavour as well as other ingredients which may be potentially unhealthy. Eating foods with a lot of sugar will increase your risk for developing diabetes and obesity. As well, foods with a poor omega-3 to omega-6 ratio or with a high sugar content increase inflammation in the body increasing the risk of heart disease.

In order to lower your risk of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease you should focus on eating nutritionally dense whole foods instead of highly processed ‘foods’.   

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness