One of my clients has a dessicated spine so when we have leg day we have to be careful and pick our routine carefully. So we always will start with him on the stationary bike at resistance level 10 for five minutes to get his spine loosening up, his legs working and his body waking up.

The routine we tend to have is starting with the abduction machine where he works the abductors close to the glutes and this tends to alleviate and release tension from the spine and ease it. So the start is slow doing a 3 second outward motion and then holding it on the furthest squeeze for an extra second  at the end of the motion and then decelerate and reverse the movement for the legs for another 3 seconds and then we move over to leg extensions with the same tempo and then lying leg curls with the same tempo. I do get clients to do a slightly different technique to the usual way people do it to emphasise on the hamstrings more. After that instead of calf dumbbell raises today we did a hill walk on a 15 degree elevated angle so that his heels plant downwards and his toes are pointed upwards encouraging good glute activation in his walk.

These are all the leg exercises we do today as we cannot do squats or hex bar deadlifts due to the pain these movements can cause his spine.

 

So for the second round we do a different tempo to create a different effect to the muscles on each exercise..this time round we do one second upwards or outwards and then hold the weight for one second at the end of the movement squeezing the muscle worked for a second or two. And then due to his spine being dessicated we are cautious and do a 3 second lowering of the weight and end the round with another faster hill walk for two minutes.

On the third round we do a few repetitions slowly to warm up and ready the motion and then we do quick reps of one second up and one second Down to get a pump and a burn.

So what we are doing is safely warming him up and working his muscles powerfully without any pain. So don’t use having spine problems with not training.

 

I’m not saying that all training and all trainers know how to help you but I do believe we always have more options then we think we do. So if your not training due to back problems and haven’t found exercise or a trainer or therapist to help you workout yet please do contact me and let me help you. It would be an honour as training and movement is my passion and I really do believe we all deserve to move our bodies and enjoy them.