No Pain, All Gain

Touching one’s toes causes a lot of people to experience lower back pain -- with good reason; it is the improper lifting alignment, with the weight too far over the center of gravity and balance. One should instead, only touch one’s ankles, and maintain the contact of palms over the legs from the ankle to the waist when bending over and back -- as the proper flexion mechanics. Movement in that manner causes no back pain. Yet that is the essential power movement of the body -- to lift, and also is the powerful rowing motion that taps the strength of the hips and legs, while ostensibly seeming to be a back exercise.

The back is just the final extension of that movement -- to tap and express the power created by the hips and legs -- working along the lines of the body to create maximum power (thrust). The hands, which hold the resistance (weight), have to be as close as possible to the body to have a favorable alignment; holding it too far away, produces an unfavorable alignment we experience as back pain. Touching one’s ankles produces the favorable alignment that touching one’s toes is not. That is the cause of much back pain -- that the weight is too far forward over the center of balance and proper alignment.

Yet frequently, in diagnostics, the examiner will ask one to touch one’s toes -- causing back pain in the doing, even when it would not manifest otherwise, in the proper positioning produced by touching one’s ankles instead and maintaining contact of the hands along the legs throughout the movement. The reason for this is that the hips and legs will adjust to make the position possible (bending at the hips and knees) -- whereas in the toe touch, the hips and legs are immobilized so that the back bears the stress entirely.

This proper starting position, with palms on the ankles, is critical to being able to perform the ultimate power movement of the body, which is the straightening movement in bringing the hands to one’s waist -- as in lifting or rowing. It can be a fairly demanding exercise performed for a high number of repetitions, as a complete (aerobic) exercise routine, and is in fact, a popular gym apparatus. It is also an exercise usually called in P.E. classes, “Toe touches” -- which as I pointed out, is ill-advised. It should be “ankle touches” -- and then one can perform as many as one wants without the stress of back pain, from improper positioning. That’s very important in performing the ultimate power movement of the body; one does not want to use that power to produce an injury.

In exercise, most injuries are self-inflicted, for one reason or another. It doesn’t just happen. It is the improper positioning at the start -- in which the skeletal structures are most vulnerable. Injuries in the end position are relatively rare -- because that is the position of greatest strength and musculoskeletal integrity. When people have a propensity to being injured or experiencing pain, it is usually because they are in the improper beginning position, or if it is in their finished position, it is not the proper finished position.

Many exercise movements, are not the proper range of that muscle design, but are purely arbitrary -- having no real function and purpose other than that the designer thought to develop function in that manner. It has no real usefulness -- at a great risk of injury and pain. Properly designed exercises as well as machinery, should produce no pain.

Yet many proponents, will insist they know what they are doing by being able to produce maximum pain and discomfort in their trainees as though that were a sign of high proficiency and understanding -- a litmus test for effectiveness. Many other educators have been taught/teach in that same manner -- of thinking to make everything as difficult as possible, and therefore, useless, if not injurious. Many do so because they are convinced that they are the “experts.” Such knowledge should not supersede what the common senses are telling one. Real, useful knowledge, confirms one's experiences about the world.