The Position Is The Cure: Why Bending Your Back Will Actually Make It Stronger

Author: Dr. Colin Butler, DPT, ATC

Low back pain is almost as universal as catching a cold. Nearly everyone will experience it at some point in their lifetime, and how severe it becomes is often unpredictable, setting aside obvious traumatic causes.

What is just as common as experiencing low back pain is being told that the solution is to strengthen your core or improve core stability.

That advice is not always wrong, but it is often incomplete. In some cases, it can even work against long term spinal health and physical function, especially for people who have dealt with recurring low back pain.

When most people are told to improve core stability, they are usually instructed to lock their midline into a fixed position, create high levels of tension through the abdominal and back muscles, and then move their arms and legs without allowing the spine to change position.

Training the spine to resist motion is important. The ability to brace and limit movement is a necessary skill in certain situations. When carrying something heavy, creating tension through the trunk can make the task more efficient by reducing unnecessary movement and wasted energy.

After an acute back injury, resisting motion can also be appropriate. When tissues are strained or sprained, the spine may not tolerate much movement early on. Exercises that emphasize resisting motion can allow someone to keep exercising and reduce pain without aggravating sensitive structures.

Here is the part that often gets overlooked.

Most people who experience low back pain will improve on their own with time. Many do not need to permanently change how their core muscles coordinate to recover.

One factor that may slow recovery for some people is the belief that their back is fragile or unstable and that they must brace their spine for everything they do to avoid reinjury.

Picking clothes up off the floor should not require squeezing your entire body as hard as possible. Brushing your teeth should not demand a perfectly rigid hip hinge.

If, after the early phase of injury has passed, the only thing you ever train your spine to do is resist motion, you gradually lose access to the motion your spine is capable of creating. When motion is no longer used, the tissues involved are no longer exposed to those forces. Over time, they decondition and tolerate less stress.

A strategy that was protective in the short term becomes limiting in the long term.

If bending over feels difficult or threatening, it may not be because bending is inherently dangerous. It may be because your spine has been trained to stay rigid all the time.

Clinically, when patients present this way, we often start with movements like a hooklying two arm reach. This helps reintroduce hip and pelvic motion that supports spinal flexion and allows the lower back to begin bending again in a controlled way.

Once the foundational mechanics are restored, we progress to movements that directly retrain spinal motion while encouraging bending, such as a heel elevated toe touch. This helps move away from constant bracing and begins re exposing the spine and its supporting muscles to load through flexion.

A full range of motion Jefferson curl is an excellent later stage option. It allows the spine to bend through its available range while building strength and control in positions where people often feel vulnerable. These are often the exact positions where back tweaks occur, likely because the spine has not been trained to handle load there.

Training your back to resist motion is only one piece of the puzzle. A resilient spine should also be able to create motion when needed and tolerate load in a wide variety of positions.

The body adapts to what it is repeatedly exposed to and allowed to recover from. In many cases, retraining your spine to bend is not harmful. It is the missing ingredient that restores lost function after a back injury and helps build long term strength and confidence.