Understanding Postural Fatigue

OK, here goes a difficult and mostly misunderstood concept, POSTURAL FATIGUE. When exercising, assuming that you have achieved the ability to maintain 'normal' posture, there is a point you may/should reach that your body simply says 'no more'. This 'no more' threshold is much easier to reach when rehabilitating an injury or beginning a fitness regimen, the more fit you become the longer it takes to reach. The fatigue point is reached when you loose control, and I don't mean emotionally. When you can no longer maintain proper technique, hold your breath, shake, twist or lean...you are done. Let's take a common spine/AB exercise an an example, the plank. When your head falls, you shrug your shoulders, back drops, glutes relax you have reached fatigue and need to stop. This premise holds true for all exercises, there is a threshold that you body will reach and anything past that point merely transfers strain to the joints and supporting soft tissue structures. Try performing just about any exercise in a mirror, can you maintain neutral, do you sway or round/arch your back?
A basic rule I teach is that when you can no longer maintain your postural check points (chin tucked-ab's braced-neutral posture) try to re-find it, if you are unable to re-establish Neutral than stop. The is no benefit in training past the point of postural fatigue.
As you can tell this can go on and on, I will elaborate further later...stay tuned.

Stabilize before you Strengthen

I got my hands on another post rehabilitation client today and after a thorough assessment I taught them some simple stabilization exercises. After going through the stabs. it became immediately apparent that this concept was never re-enforced to them. We basically went through the beginning program in the book (Back to Feeling Great) and thoroughly learned to Brace, Bridge, Segmentally Stabilize and Side leg raise (hip abduction). It never ceases to amaze me that when taught with total control these 4 exercises will safely make you stronger, but they unachieved it from the inside out...stability before strength.

Simple fix to Back Pain

No matter how many times I see it, nor how many times I teach it, I continue to be amazed by how powerful 4 simple exercises can be at helping to correct spinal issues and back pain. In my book Back to Feeling Great is a protocol I developed over the years that just keeps on proving to me and my clients that it works. I had 2 new clients recently, on is 48 yrs. old, has a bulging disk with pain down the leg, he also smokes but is an avid cyclist and rides a desk for a living. The other is a 30 something with disk/vertebral degeneration, she has had numerous injections, and surgery with the next step being fusion. Both have similar but different issues and both have had a significant reduction in pain and consequent increase in activity levels. No matter what we did the same 4 simple exercises to re-educate the ab's, gluteals, lateral hip and spine segmental stabilizers. This protocol works and if done correctly will help you get better. By the way both of the examples above were referred in by spine surgeons who will send to us a last resort before surgery. Go team.