lumbar lordosis

Have you been taught cobra pose or locust pose to strengthen your back? It is a common practice to try to strengthen the back with back bends, focusing on the long back extensors on either side of the spine. This approach is used by the McKenzie Method, many yoga teachers, and physical therapists.

In the Gokhale Method® we prefer to strengthen the back by working with the muscles which collectively stabilize the trunk. Our focus is on maintaining a healthy J-spine baseline rather than backbending.

Healthy muscle activation maintains a J-spine, protecting the spine, discs, and nerves from damage due to instability and compression.

Recently in Gokhale® Fitness, our teacher Harrison has been taking our members through an exercise I rate highly, bird dog, or, as it is sometimes called, table top. Contrary to its appearance, it is not primarily a leg and arm exercise—instead, the weight and movement of the limbs provide a challenge to the stability of the torso, strengthening the muscles of the inner corset, which include the transversus abdominus, the internal and external obliques, and the intrinsic muscles of the spine. This then protects the spine against torque and distortion. 

Gokhale Fitness teacher Harrison in the basic bird dog pose. Bird dog involves lifting the opposite arm and leg—but its purpose is to work the deep trunk stabilizers, or inner corset.

Most people do this exercise any old way—perhaps with a tucked pelvis, a hung head, or flinging their arms and legs up and swaying their backs. It wants to be done in such a way that it maintains the J-spine and doesn’t encourage distortions of the spine such as excessive lumbar lordosis or thoracic kyphosis, and doesn’t pull your nerves and discs around willy-nilly. 

Caution: If your back pain is persistent or severe, we recommend you consult your medical team prior to doing this exercise.

Setting up

Especially if you are new to this exercise, or to the Gokhale Method, take your time to set up well. Without the correct set up, you can lose the exercise’s value from the get-go. You want the exercise to be safe, effective, and to pattern healthy everyday movement mechanics. 

• Kidney bean shape your hands (use your fists if you prefer)
• Externally rotate your legs a little
• Pivot your pelvis forward (antevert) by relaxing your lower belly
• Engage your rib anchor to eliminate any sway
• Drop your spine between your shoulder blades
• Lengthen the back of your neck. Your face will be parallel with the floor, your chin down 

Check you are starting from a good baseline position.

Doing Bird Dog

Engage your trunk muscles to keep your pelvis and trunk level and still at all times—do not twist, round, or dip.

• Start by lifting one arm, and the opposite leg, outwards to horizontal, in line with your torso. 
• Return to the floor.
• Switch sides, lifting and lowering the opposite arm and leg together.
• Repeat on alternate sides.

This video shows the smooth, steady action that you are looking for in bird dog. Your torso remains still and horizontal while you move one leg and the opposite arm, and then change sides.

Reps, sets, and frequency

How many you do depends on your current level of fitness and strength, but for most people up to three sets of 6, 8, or 10 repetitions works well (one raise and lower of an arm and a leg is a rep). Stop short of failure—you don’t want to lose your form, but rather, protect your spine at all times. 

If you feel significant soreness in your muscles the next day, give yourself a day to recuperate before repeating bird dog. If you are working at a gentle level, you can do this exercise daily if you wish.

Common mistakes

• Losing your form—keep checking that you haven’t tucked your pelvis, swayed your lower back, rounded your upper back, or arched your neck.
• Doing the exercise too fast, as if it were an arm and leg aerobic exercise rather than a trunk stabilization exercise.
• Lifting your arm and leg too high, and swaying your back.

Lifting the head and/or leg beyond horizontal will likely encourage sway in the back. Image from Pexels

Ways to progress the exercise

After you have mastered good form and smooth execution, you may want to increasingly challenge your muscles. Depending on your starting point this may take a few days, weeks, or months…don’t rush it and risk injury. There are many ways to progress steadily and vary your training:

• If you started with just a few reps, aim to up your reps and/or sets over time. You can count numbers or breaths, or work to music.
• Raising your hand in a fist uses more muscular engagement in the hand and forearm.
• As you extend your leg, use your foot muscles to point your toes. Then try a set pointing your heel back.
• Hold the extension position (lift) to work on stamina and endurance and add an isometric challenge to your muscles. Go for duration rather than lifting beyond horizontal. 
• Bring your knee and hand together rather than down to the floor between lifts.
• Add wrist and ankle weights.

In this video Harrison demonstrates adding further challenge in bird dog.

Take the benefits into daily life

No matter how well done, bird dog is only an exercise and can only be done so many times by a sane person. It is, however, perfect preparation for real life activities that use the arms and legs, while needing to keep the trunk steady—e.g. opening a heavy door, carrying a suitcase, lifting something off a high shelf, dancing, or bending. After a week or two of doing this exercise, you will probably notice that you feel stronger and that daily chores are more enjoyable. You may notice your running or swimming is more efficient and powerful. And that you have less back pain!

Trunk stability enables you to undertake asymmetrical tasks which would otherwise distort and injure your spine.

Best next action steps 

If you would like guidance in moving as you are meant to, and doing bird dog, or other exercises, with healthy form and posture, book a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

October 16 is World Spine Day, which makes this the perfect time to share with you a fascinating piece of recent research about the human spine. 

In April I was contacted by Scott Williams PhD, Associate Professor at the Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University. He and his team of anthropologists had recently published a scientific paper— which concluded that understanding the spines of Neanderthals, a human ancestor, may explain the back pain experienced by humans today.

Who were the Neanderthals?

The Neanderthals populated Europe and Asia between about 400,00 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals became extinct, but are considered one of our most recent evolutionary ancestors. Research shows there is DNA evidence that they interbred with early human populations¹. 

The Neanderthals were adept hunters who controlled fire and made shelters, clothing, and artifacts. Wikimedia

The Neanderthal skeleton was shorter, and its bones heftier and more robust than those of modern humans. Rather than being a hunched “caveman,” recent research suggests their posture may have been entirely upright. Wikimedia

Comparing Neanderthal and modern spines

Examination of the bones of Neanderthal lumbar spines has indicated that they curved less in the lumbar area than modern human spines studied in the U.S. and Europe. Because a significant degree of lumbar curve has commonly been associated with the ability of bipedal humanity to stand upright, Neanderthals have long been assumed to have had an intrinsically different posture from modern humans. 

However, Professor Williams was able to come to a different conclusion because, like the Gokhale Method®, he realized that “modern” human posture itself has been subject to change in just the past few hundred years. 

Williams and his colleagues compared preindustrial to postindustrial spines of male and female modern humans from around the world against samples of Neanderthal spines. His samples included more than 300 spines—that’s more than 1,600 vertebrae.

Williams acknowledges that because lower back curvature is made up of soft tissues (i.e., intervertebral discs), not just bones, their spine shape cannot be known with certainty. “The bones are often all that is preserved in fossils, so it’s all we have to work with,” he adds. Nonetheless, the distinctions in spine formation that Williams and his team found strongly suggest different degrees of curvature.

What Williams’ research found about modern human spine shape

Williams’ research indicates that there has not been just a one-time dominant spine shape in modern humans, but that spine shape changed over the period of the industrial revolution. Overall, Williams found that spines in postindustrial people showed more lumbar wedging (which produces curvature) than did those in pre-industrial people. 

This illustration detail from Professor Williams’ paper shows increasing, unchanged, and diminishing angles of wedging towards the back of lumbar vertebrae (B). Academic.oup.com

Williams observes:

Past research has shown that higher rates of low back pain are associated with urban areas and especially in ‘enclosed workshop’ settings where employees maintain tedious and painful work postures, such as constantly sitting on stools in a forward leaning position. . . A pre-industrial vs. post-industrial lifestyle is the important factor.

Research fits with the Gokhale Method

In his paper Williams cited my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, as it details how posture and spine shape have changed progressively since the industrial revolution. It explains that industrialization led to the break in transmission of traditional ways of living and working. For example, people have always sat to do tasks—but it’s how they sat that changed and caused problems. 

Human beings have always sat to do tasks, from nursing infants to decorating artifacts. The important thing is to sit well. Winslow Homer, Mending the Nets, 1882 (detail). nga.gov

Industrialization also resulted in new but mistaken paradigms of “natural” spine shape in furniture design, fashion, and even medicine. My book advocates for the J-shaped, pre-industrial spine rather than the  postindustrial, S-shaped spine, which causes lumbar compression, wear and tear, and pain. You can read more about spine shape here.

The Gokhale Method advocacy for the J-shape is based on observing that it remains intact in our children, largely in our track and field athletes, and consistently in adults living in non-industrialized regions or in traditional societies. And these people report significantly less back pain than the 80% of American adults who suffer incapacity with back pain at some point in their lives. 

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This illustration from 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back shows the more recent S-shape spine (left) that would likely create “wedging” in the intervertebral discs and bones subject to extra curvature, and the earlier J-shape spine that does not have this compression (right) .

Conclusions about the Neanderthal spine and understanding modern back pain

Williams’ research concludes that the Neanderthals’ spines were significantly different from those of postindustrial people but not from pre-industrial people. By examining only the spines from modern people who lived in the industrialized world, past researchers have mistakenly assumed that the distinctions between Neanderthal and modern spine shape were due to evolutionary development rather than social and cultural changes. Williams says:

Diminished physical activity levels, bad posture, and the use of furniture, among other changes in lifestyle that accompanied industrialization, resulted, over time, in inadequate soft tissue structures to support lumbar lordosis during development. To compensate, our lower-back bones have taken on more wedging than our pre-industrial and Neanderthal predecessors, potentially contributing to the frequency of lower back pain we find in post-industrial societies. 

This illustration shows how angles of vertebral wedging contribute to spinal curvature. 

The idea that the lumbar spine of our Neanderthal ancestors was relatively straight is not so shocking to those of us who already recognize that it makes sense for bipedal spinal health. And the wedging of the postindustrial vertebral bones is a fascinating discovery, which shows the degree of adaptation possible within the human body, although it is clearly not preventing back pain! 

The evolution of humankind has been associated with changing posture in many versions of this cartoon. Pinterest

This fascinating research suggests an ancient and more natural way to be which, while preserved in some parts of the world, we’ve largely lost in our culture. But it can be and is being relearned. If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture and spine shape, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, sign up to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

Reference:
¹ Scott A. Williams et al., “Inferring Lumbar Lordosis in Neandertals and Other Hominins.” PNAS Nexus 1, no. 1 (March 2022): pgab005, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgab005.’