Back strains can get in the way of your fitness and exercise goals. And, all too often, it’s only when you experience a back strain or sprain that you take back safety and injury prevention seriously.
Fortunately, exercise is effective for reducing back strains and pain1, which is why we incorporate a variety of exercises to support your back in all F45 workouts; and why our group fitness classes are optimised to support the safety of your back and body.
Below, we’ll explore what lower back strain is, and what causes it – before diving into our six top tips on how to reduce back strain during your next workout.
What is lower back strain?
Lower back strains are injuries to either a muscle or tendon in your back. A strain occurs when a movement causes the muscle or tendons that support your spine to be excessively twisted, pulled, or torn. After the initial strain, your muscles can spasm or feel sore, limiting your mobility and making certain movements uncomfortable.
Back strains are commonly caused by incorrect technique when lifting weights, or by overuse after prolonged or repetitive movements that engage your back. The muscles in your back are involved in almost every exercise you perform in a workout – so it’s vital to learn how to reduce and prevent lower back strains when you’re training.
What causes lower back strain during a workout
Whenever you take part in any form of physical exercise, some degree of risk is involved. At F45, our trainers monitor each workout to ensure our members are kept as safe as possible, constantly supervising form and posture to make sure no one is putting unnecessary stress on their body.
Unfortunately, one way many people learn how to prevent lower back pain is through experience. So read on as we unpack several of the most common mistakes people make in causing lower back strain – so you can avoid making the same.
Overtraining
Pain isn’t always gain, and when you exercise either too intensely or too frequently, you can push your back muscles and tendons to breaking point.
Overtraining injuries happen when you haven’t given your body enough time to recover before exercising again. It’s true – sometimes, one of the best ways to prevent lower back pain is simply by resting.
To read up on why that’s the case, check out F45’s guide to the importance of rest days for our in-depth take on why it’s good to put your put feet up!
Incorrect technique
Performing repeated movements incorrectly is an easy way to strain your back, especially if you’re piling on the weights in a resistance workout.
If you’re ever unsure how to prevent lower back pain when lifting weights, ask your nearest F45 trainer. It’s always more worthwhile to perform an exercise correctly, as it’s more challenging – and ensures your muscle groups are balanced as they grow.
Muscle imbalances
When you spend a lot of time in unnatural postures or positions, the muscles in your back can become imbalanced as they compensate to make up for an incorrect position. If you work at a desk, for example, you’re susceptible to developing weakened back muscles and shortened abdominal muscles. These imbalances are exposed when you exercise, making it difficult to perform techniques correctly.
To help prevent lower back strains, then, ensure your workouts include a variety of back, core, and aerobic exercises.
Skipping warm up
Any form of exercise requires a warmup beforehand; and performing intense, fast or weightbearing exercises with unprepared back muscles can lead to injury.
So, when warming up, ensure your routine contains back safety and injury prevention exercises that will adequately get your body ready for the tasks ahead. This is, for instance, how we start all our classes at F45 – and, if you’re wondering how group fitness classes work here, our trainers kick each workout off with light full body movements before upping the pace. Stick around – below, we’ll name a few of our favourite warm up (and cool down) exercises to help you prevent lower back strain.
How to reduce back strain when working out: our 6 top tips
Understanding how to prevent injuries during a workout will make the experience of exercising much more enjoyable and comfortable, promoting your wellness and motivation. Read on for six top back-injury prevention tips.
1. Warm up and cool down
Warming up and cooling down is a core part of reducing back strain in sport and workout classes. Warming up before exercise decreases the chances of injury and prepares your muscles for stronger, faster movements. This is why F45 cardio and resistance workouts are designed to gradually increase in intensity.
To avoid back injury, some of the best exercises for injury prevention during a warmup include:
- Toe touches
- Standing ladders
- Foam roller back extensions
- Spiderman stretch
- Hip external rotations
Performing cool down exercises at the end of your workout can speed up recovery. Cool down movements for back safety and injury prevention include:
- Child’s pose
- Cat cow
- Knee-to-chest pose
- Downward-facing dog
- Spinal twist
2. Always have rest days
Rest lets your back recover after a workout, and the connection between sleep and exercise means it’s vital to take some time off to let your muscles rebuild and minimise stiffness – not to mention the ache of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) – the next day. Giving yourself enough time to recovery before working out is an essential part of knowing how to reduce back strain; and if you work out too soon after exercising, this can result in overuse injuries. So, take a rest day if you feel you need it – but if you don’t want to stay sedentary, enjoy F45’s recovery class.
3. Focus on technique
Carrying out exercises with the correct technique is a key way to prevent lower back pain2. A great way to learn and maintain technique is to have a professional trainer watching and correcting your technique throughout the workout.
At your local F45 studio, we design our workouts to encourage learning, promote proper technique, and challenge our members in a safe and inspiring environment. Remember to move at your own pace – it’s always better to do fewer movements with the correct form than to do more and risk putting undue strain on your back.
4. Refuel your body
What you eat plays a vital role in how well you work out and prevent lower back strain. A balanced diet boosts your energy levels and gives you better control of your movements; as well as helping rebuild your muscles, reinforce bone density, and strengthen your tendons. A healthy diet should include a lot of carbohydrates and protein, with a mix of essential fats, vitamins, calcium – and plenty of hydration!
5. Stretch daily
Learning stretches is important for knowing how to reduce back strain before or during a workout. Stretching promotes muscle flexibility and minimises injury by preparing and relieving your muscles before and after each workout.
Performing a daily stretching routine outside of F45 workouts can help prevent injury by reducing muscle stiffness. Here are five stretches you can perform at home:
- Hamstring stretch
- Pigeon pose
- Triceps stretch
- Shoulder stretch
- Kneeling lunge stretch
6. Wear comfortable gear
The clothes you wear while you work out should be comfortable and supportive. To support your back, there are a variety of compression vests, crops, bodysuits and stabilising bras you can wear. Compression wear prevents lower back strain by keeping your muscles warm and encouraging blood flow for fast recovery.
Now that you’ve learnt how to reduce back strain, discover how to build a sustainable fitness routine.
1 https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD009790.pub2/full
2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934575/
