RPE PT and Performance

Have you been told to strengthen your core for your low back pain?

That's not a bad or incorrect recommendation but increasing the strength of your core is probably not the full picture for low back pain rehab.

Pain, especially chronic or recurrent low back pain, is multi-factoral and can be influenced by mobility, outside stressors, systemic inflammation (although I hate that term as a catch-all), overall capacity, workload, previous bouts of pain, diet, hydration, sleep, core strength, and much more.

Core strength exercises can help low back simply by being an introductory point to exercise for someone that has not exercised before - that, alone, is enough to influence low back pain.

3x10 is a great starting point for many, whether that be on the rehab side of the continuum or the training side.

Every individual should have an exercise prescription based on their needs and goals. 3x10 is often an appropriate starting point for many but needs to have some sort of progression/regression based on improvements and tolerance.

Don't feel bad for starting with the "generic" prescription. There's a reason it's so popular.

Ice isn't a magic recovery tool 🧊

There are specific instances when ice can be your friend but icing for "recovery" is misled.

In fact, I would recommend against an otherwise healthy athlete icing after every practice. Ice will help relieve pain but beware of what other issues you are masking and what that may lead to.

If you feel like you need to ice after every practice, take a look at your strength & conditioning program, load management strategies, and actual recovery modalities that move the needle.

If you need help assessing these, comment RECOVERY below and someone from our team will reach out to you.

We can't wait to see you there tomorrow!!

Body By Design
Chris Serrao
Matt Diesel

It is important to have body competency and awareness as an athlete but that is not a substitute for effective loading 💪🏽

Simply cuing "squeeze your (insert muscle group here)" does not mean that the force of the object is actually going through your target tissue. It just means you are squeezing that muscle.

You can be squeezing your calf muscle while doing a bicep curl. The calf is not going to take any load/force because of that.

It is more helpful to place your focus on body position, exercise setup, range of motion, tempo/velocity, and external cuing than "squeezing."

If you are having a hard time "feeling" a muscle, find a good trainer or therapist to assess your form and programming. Check the link in our bio to schedule with us!