It's 6am and you just woke up to a dull aching low back
"Great way to start my day" you think to yourself as you try to wiggle yourself out of bed as to not further agitate your back.
You knock on your toddlers door to wake them up, and enter the room excited to see your beautiful spawn.
Reaching into the crib to grab them, you forget about your back pain.
Picking up your 20 pound bowling ball of a child, you are quickly reminded with a sharpe pain and tightness in your low back.
Being a moms hard enough.
Being a mom with a bad low back? Well, that's just pure hell.
I first learned about "mom back" from my dad friends who had "dad back."
I did an interview with one of my good friends podcast called the "DadPod."
I was asked about "dad back" and some ways to alleviate it.
Two weeks later, my buddy texted me "my low back pain...it's gone...thank you so much man!"
To understand how to fix low back pain, we need to first understand low back pain from a lifestyle, physiological, and psychological level.
Physiologically, our body's have become warped from sitting and stress into what's called "upper cross syndrome" and "lower cross syndrome." Basically our hips become tight, and our glutes and core weak, leading our low back to overcompensate and stay "on" in a contracted position.
Lifestyle, we all pick up our children incorrectly. The "deadlift" was actually created during the Roman times when soldiers were to pick up dead people off the ground but kept injuring their backs. They had to teach the soldiers to "hinge" at their hips and keep their backs flat, lifting from their legs instead of their low back.
Psychologically, moms are stressed AF. When you're stressed, you stop breathing from the diaphragm, and start breathing from your chest. The diaphragm attaches to the core muscles, and when you aren't using the diaphragm to breath, it's like you're loosening the cables that support a bridge.
So, now that we understand what's causing "mom back," how do we fix it?
Here's a 5 minute circuit that will activate the glutes and core, and mobilize your hips so that you can continue to play with your kids pain free:
✅ World's Greatest Stretch
No rest
✅ Side Clamshell Bridges
No rest
✅ Dead Bugs Breathing
Repeat for 1 more round for a total of 2 rounds