This Core Routine Will Convince Your Brain To Stop Sending You Pain
Your golden chance to get off the pain meds and live again!
Let’s talk about muscle guarding for a moment. When you hurt your back, your neuromuscular system will do everything in its power to stabilize the area. This results in muscles like the quadratus lumborum or transversus abdominus seizing up and making movements such as lumbar flexion or extension painful and intimidating. After experiencing this, your first thought will likely be to keep the spine as neutral as possible and rest.
The tricky thing is that your body’s attempt at protecting you usually has the opposite effect. One mistake that a lot of people make during the acute phase of healing (first 4–5 days post-injury) is to rest completely or to start excessively stretching. The issue here is that both of these things can cause major recovery delays and may even worsen your symptoms.
Your best course of action will be to continue exercising but within manageable limits. No matter how much pain you’re in (or think you’re in — pain is very much just perception), there are movements you can do to ameliorate your symptoms.
One great way to do this is by focusing on bracing the core and reintroducing deep breaths to the diaphragm. While this may not look or…
