Originally Posted by
topflightpro
I just read the article in full. Other than the child's pose and cobra, all of the stretches I listed fit with the suggestions of the author as the spine is not flexed. Same with the strengthening exercises. And with the cobra, I tend to focus on stretching my hip flexors and abs more than arcing my back.
I do find the perspective that bending is bad interesting, and my experience doesn't disagree with it. As I mentioned, I find that having a longer top tube and stem is better because I can elongate my back more, as opposed to curving it (which the author says is not good.) I am also very adept at rotating my hips forward when on the bike.
Yeah, most of the stuff you're doing is in line with this article, and I've dropped the things from my routine that conflicted with it.
I'd encourage anyone here with back issues to read this article. It's definitely a new perspective to me. I've always accepted that strength training requires full range of movement stretching as a safety and efficiency consideration. This article suggests the low back is a special case where this is not true, and it makes some points that are pretty compelling from a mechanical perspective (but of course I'm not a doctor). I'm taking these suggestions to heart and will report if they help me.
I'd particularly like to hear from people who are invested in/have extensive experience with traditional yoga poses, as this clashes with a lot of that, as far as I can tell.