Question:
I hurt my back squatting (made a stupid mistake). I'm pretty much through
the worst of it, but my lower back is really my weak link. I would
appreciate it if someone could e-mail me a suggestion or two on which
exercises I should do to get a really powerful lower back and how often I
should do them. I do stiff-leg, will do powercleans (if I can ever heal
enough) as well as some hyperextensions. It seems that everyone I speak
with has a different idea about what should be done not only in terms of
rehab, but also routine.
Answer:
The great Vasily Alexeev draped over a gymnastics long
horse with his feet wedged between the stall bars of an unbelievably
archaic training gym (by U.S. standards) in Moscow’s Lenin Institute of
Sport. With four hundred pounds precariously perched behind his head, he
explodes for five reps of back raises. There is virtually NO hip extensor
involvement, only pure erector spinae contraction. That means 1)
tremendous low back limit strength or speed-strength is developed, far
beyond what any other exercise could possibly accomplish, and 2) virtually
NO trauma to the tenuous intervertebral discs of the lumbar spine, which
is something no other low back exercise can claim.
The point is, back raises done as directed, is the ONLY low back exercise
I'd ever prescribe to ANYONE
