Your spine has a bone to pick with you.
That’s right, not to start a fight, but when was the last time you gave the back of your body some attention.
Not without a formal mention – the ‘posterior chain’ refers to the series muscles that include the lower back, the glutes, hamstrings and even the calf muscles – which must also be developed and maintained.
According to a Human Kinetics excerpt, “neglecting your posterior chain can negatively affect your posture, mobility, strength, and flexibility.”
It is also arguably one of the main reasons that people suffer with lower back pain and get recurring injuries – as cited in a study by the Institute for Biomechanics in Switzerland.
Why pulling your weight matters?
Since most of us have weakened back muscles due to sitting for long periods of time, what often happens is that our stabilising (support) muscles tend to do more of the heavy duty work, which prolonged overtime can lead to daily aches and pains in your back and neck.
Explains Ari Michaeli, a physiotherapist at the Knee and Joint clinic in Johannesburg, “proper training of the posterior chain reduces the risk of lower back and knee injuries, as well as creates symmetry and balance to the body’s physique, thereby countering the dominant anterior chain muscles.” He asserts that strong and flexible posterior chain muscles are an important part of an injury-prevention strategy.
“Back” to training basics
Having good exercise routine that incorporates the entire body and includes pushing and pulling exercises is the only way to ensure that you’ll target both the anterior (front-half of the body muscles e.g. chest, abs and quads) as well as the previously mentioned posterior chain muscles.
If you’re not sure what the difference is between pushing and pulling movements – stop and think, are you working to push something (which could be your own body-weight or external weights) away from your starting point? Or, are you moving (or pulling) the resistance force closer toward you?
As a general rule of thumb – pushing movements, such as push-ups, bench press and forward lunges, will generally target the front of the body, whilst pulling movements such as rows, deadlifts, or reverse lunges, will draw more effort from the muscles in the back body.
According to Neville Young, a Johannesburg based Personal Trainer, a good way to create this balance is to consider splitting your workouts into push versus pull days, where your exercise focus will be on training specific groups of muscles. “In this way you do not fatigue the same muscles and it allows you to get more bang for your buck.”
Giving an example, he says “you can split training your legs into a push-pull routine, working the quads and stabilising muscles around the knee one day and the glutes and hamstrings on another day, which can make your workouts more interesting.”
Having said that, Neville adds that push-pull routines can also be done on the same day. “I personally am a massive fan of training opposing movements. For example, if I do barbell overhead presses I would then superset it with Lat pull-down. By doing this I am ensuring that the posterior chain is also getting the attention that it needs.”
So go on, keep training strong and remember, don’t back out!
Credit
With special thanks to Ari Michaeli and Neville Young for sharing their expertise. For more information visit: www.physiojointknee.co.za or email Neville at neville@fitranxjoburg.co.za
References
Bishop. T. (ND) Hamstring and Posterior Chain Exercises. Available at Human Kinetics [online] https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/hamstring-and-posterior-chain-exercises
Lorenzetti. S. (2017) Pulling Exercises for Strength Training and Rehabilitation: Movements and Loading Conditions. Available at the Journal of Morphology and Kinesiology [online] https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5142/2/3/33
Ridder. E. (2013) Posterior muscle chain activity during various extension exercises: an observational study. Available at PubMed [online] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3716991/