Increasing pike flexibility whilst not hitting lower back too much..

Hey guy's,

A quick question for anyone that can help regarding safe pike progression whilst not causing a possible future lumbar spine aggravation.

Basically I've been following the foundation course and moving along well and really enjoying it. However, I'm also researching back health under Doctor Stuart McGill who seems to be the leading authority on all things lumbar spine related.

Basically, should we not be focusing more on hamstring flexibility when doing weighted pike holds? Sometimes I will feel (and see others) getting a lot of lumbar flexion (I've also seen some horrific lumbar flexion in some press handstand tutorials on YouTube) almost definite precursor to a future lumbar herniation.

What do you guys think about this and do you think we should at first do waiters pose weighted pikes to hit the hamstrings more so?? Really curious as I never want to do something which could be a help towards lumbar herniation, more hamstrings and less low back flexion would help that?

Appreciate your thoughts, many thanks guys

PS. What is your knowledge of lumbar back issues within gymnastics for high level competitors? Does all the lower back strength gains negate some of the possible spine issues??

Thanks again

With a pike stretch you need mobility in the hamstrings, posterior hip, lumbar and thoracic spine. If you keep the spine in neutral as McGill recommends you will never get the pike stretch. What is normal human movement for bending forwards? Utilise all structures. How many children keep neutral spine? None.

Most people are worried about flexing the spine because we are inactive and spend most of our time sitting. When we are then asked to perform a normal movement we freak out and worry about herniating the disc. Why does no one worry about wearing out the hip joints with keeping neutral spine?

I have not heard of one person who is performing foundation getting a herniated disc. Yet I treat people daily who have disc injuries from sitting too much and not moving as we should.

Listen to the last podcast with Coach Sommer, he talks about the athleticism and all the power that is derived exactly from being able to bend the spine. That is why we have articulated vertebrae, it´s not a solid piece doomed to be neutral !

Mark Collins said:

I have not heard of one person who is performing foundation getting a herniated disc. Yet I treat people daily who have disc injuries from sitting too much and not moving as we should.

Quoted for emphasis.

I agree with the above excellent statement by the highly knowledgable Mark Collins.  I would just add that you should focus on getting good hip hinge and hamstring flexibility.  You should not be one of those people we see pictures of where their entire pike or pancake is coming from their back.  we do need lumbar flexion and rotation, and we do need to get there slowly and progressively, but it is an important human functional movement.  With the Jeff Curl there have been lots of other threads here you can look up where we have hashed out the data on this and the physiology/anatomy involved, so i'm not going to repeat it all here.  Gymnasts do have a fairly high rate of spine injury, but it is from the dynamic high power movements and specific traumatic events more so than from the mobility of their spinal columns. 

McGill is certainly a smart man. He's done a great deal of research and worked with a wide variety of patients from laypeople to athletes. But IMO he took the data and made the wrong conclusion.

He's saying - Patients are immobile, patients have disk problems, flexion bothers it, so don't flex, and become more immobile.

To me, after getting through the acute phase of a disc injury, addressing the mobility issue should be no. 1 priority. If you don't have one, addressing the mobility problem is the best way to help prevent it.

It's also important to distinguish that in foundation we are talking about mostly unweighted spinal flexion, so the body is moving under it's own power or lightly weighted spinal flexion like jefferson curls (which are done carefully at low volume and built very gradually).

We aren't talking about 5 rep max deadlifts which have to be done with a neutral arch to make the lift as efficient as possible and to avoid spinal disk injury (when are talking about a different order of magnitude in weight, spinal flexion under load is not good). 

It's like everything in training, if you go directly and try to do a pushups on the back of your wrist, you will get injured. But if you slowly condition yourself for the movement, injury is almost impossible because now you're ready for the new pattern.

Cole Dano said:

McGill is certainly a smart man. He's done a great deal of research and worked with a wide variety of patients from laypeople to athletes. But IMO he took the data and made the wrong conclusion.

 

He's saying - Patients are immobile, patients have disk problems, flexion bothers it, so don't flex, and become more immobile.

 

To me, after getting through the acute phase of a disc injury, addressing the mobility issue should be no. 1 priority. If you don't have one, addressing the mobility problem is the best way to help prevent it.

I agree. It's like studying caged monkeys that have only climbed in their cage since birth. Then you let them roam free. Those poor monkeys would be complaining of arm pain . You would then conclude big trees are unsafe for monkeys and they are better off staying in their cages.

We are like a generation of caged monkeys.

I was a follower of McGill's work prior to joining GB's Foundation, Handstand and Stretch Courses.  McGill's work and his conclusions also had me concerned about the lumbar flexion that occurs with the wide variety of different exercises and stretches found in the gb courses.  Before gb my back had gone out on me a few times over the years so naturally I was always checking my back watching for the first sign of lumbar problems when performing gb.

To my amazement I had 0 issues with my lumbar.  In fact my lumbar (and everything) got a lot stronger and more flexible under the guidance of gb.  I can now bend forward and move naturally every which way w/ out fear of my lumbar acting funny which is not something I could confidently do before gb.

In my honest opinion the combination of gb courses is the best therapy for keeping the body youthful and making it stronger and more flexible than it ever was before.

Learning the best way to transfer energy through the linkages of the body is an interesting subject as is learning how to protect certain parts of the body, for example squeezing the glutes hard when lifting heavy objects helps to protect the lower back.  Still, in the real world most lifting is done with odd shaped objects, such as lifting boxes off the floor where lumbar flexion is inevitable.  Living in the real world, it is better to have a lumbar that is both strong and flexible in a range of motion as gb teaches rather than one that has been developed to be strong and stiff in only one position, namely a neutral spine as McGill tends to teach.

Haha, thanks a lot guys, I was just curious as I was reading his stuff and in 2 minds. I myself move around like a monkey and teach all of my clients to do the same (most of which are caged

You have given me good feedback and I like it. I guess it's about moderation, if someone has super tight hamstrings and the only way they can near touch their toes is by really really bending the back, I will not hand them a 50lb barbell and tell them do do a weighted pike hang.

I was going to attend a seminar of McGills in October as I want to have more knowledge of lumbar spine and herniated back issues with clients etc, but I think it will just screw with my brain even if he has some very good advice regarding power lifting (something I don't do much of anyway). I will keep being a monkey and moving like a gb should.

Many thanks all

PS. Any idea about resources for lumbar spine health and rehabilitation etc etc? I want to study it and be able to explain it scientifically.

Thanks again

Perhaps the best paradigm shifting book for these type of questions is Explain Pain by Butler, Moseley.

It focuses on the nervous systems role in pain, which is critical to understand the all too common lower back pain.

Understanding this helps you understand why GB works so well. It not only trains the body's tissues, but also the nevus system.

McGill is largely misunderstood:

https://www.t-nation.com/training/interview-with-dr-stuart-mcgill-part-1

For starters page 223 of Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance: The superman "is a poorly designed exercise".

I think coaches program is much more practical for the real world.

My wife put this very succinctly.  "Your lumbar spine isn't supposed to bend because your hips can't." 

Yee Lai Chan said:

Haha, thanks a lot guys, I was just curious as I was reading his stuff and in 2 minds. I myself move around like a monkey and teach all of my clients to do the same (most of which are caged

You have given me good feedback and I like it. I guess it's about moderation, if someone has super tight hamstrings and the only way they can near touch their toes is by really really bending the back, I will not hand them a 50lb barbell and tell them do do a weighted pike hang.

I was going to attend a seminar of McGills in October as I want to have more knowledge of lumbar spine and herniated back issues with clients etc, but I think it will just screw with my brain even if he has some very good advice regarding power lifting (something I don't do much of anyway). I will keep being a monkey and moving like a gb should.

Many thanks all

PS. Any idea about resources for lumbar spine health and rehabilitation etc etc? I want to study it and be able to explain it scientifically.

Thanks again

Try to study from as many varied sources as possible. Make yourself as familiar with Coach's material as possible as it works and will continue to work. You also cannot go wrong starting with Katy Bowman' work.

Mark Collins said:

I agree. It's like studying caged monkeys that have only climbed in their cage since birth. Then you let them roam free. Those poor monkeys would be complaining of arm pain . You would then conclude big trees are unsafe for monkeys and they are better off staying in their cages.

We are like a generation of caged monkeys.

Beautifully stated, Mark.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Hehe, thanks again guy's.

Also Mark, yes yes, you hit the nail smack square on the head and made me laugh at the same time, couldn't be more true! I also just bought a Katy Bowman book and subscribed to everything she does, thanks again for the heads up ;D

Now, back to my pike training ;p

Alexander, thanks to you for that McGill link too, was an interesting read!!

Do you guy's recommend me doing his 2 day seminar or do you think he's quite off the mark, whereas us movers don't want to turn into a steel column of rigidity? It costs about the same as Coach's foundations seminar (which I'm attending in September just don't want to chase rabbits down a dark hole. Thanks

He's not cheap but I thought it'd be eye opening.

Thanks for all your feedback again, this forum is AWESOME!!

I would not attend the seminar, but buy the book. You will get enough of an idea of his work. Play around with the exercises and compare with what you you have learnt with Gymnastic bodies. You will see the difference.

I tried McGill's approach with my patients and did not get any success. Unless you have good body awareness it is difficult to hold neutral spine. Looking back now I think most people found it hard to do as it is not natural for us to limit our spinal movement.

Thanks Mark, maybe I'll save the money and just buy his book plus put the savings towards the foundations and some gymnastic equipment