Whenever I watch the Home and Garden Network (only home-owners would understand the allure here), I’m struck by how much attention gets paid to the foundation in new buildings, as well as in buildings undergoing renovations. The ground has to be compacted to prevent settling, the walls have to be perfectly vertical and level with each other. The rebar has to have a specific spacing inside the concrete, and then there’s the matter of getting the plumbing and drainage to work properly. The downside to all this finite arrangement is that you can only really get one shot at doing it right before the concrete cures, and after that you just have to hope you got it right.

An interesting parallel is in the treatment of the spine within the gym setting. We see Johnny Benchpress racking out sets of deadlift with a spinal position that would make the Riddler develop palpitations, running mechanics that make everything from my ankles to knees to low back to teeth rattle just watching, and all manner of forced end-range crunch just adding to the potpourri of fantastic walking through the health club doors.

Is it any wonder we have a population with messed up spines? Even those who don’t have messed up backs still have messed up backs. Take a study done by Weishaupt et al in 1998 (referenced HERE), where they performed MRI’s on healthy asymptomatic volunteers between 20 and 50 years old. They found disc bulges in 62% of those sampled and disc protrusions into the lateral canal in 67%. A 2009 study by Kanayama et al (referenced HERE) showed that in an otherwise healthy middle-aged population, disc degeneration could be found in just about anyone, most prevalent in the L5-S1 disc with a whopping 53% diagnosed by MRI.

ARVE Error: id and provider shortcodes attributes are mandatory for old shortcodes. It is recommended to switch to new shortcodes that need only url

What this means is that trainers looking to work with anyone who is upwardly mobile needs to have a sound understanding of the foundation of all movement: the spine and core. No, this does not mean doing 50 variations on your favorite crunch routine.

The sad fact is that the vast majority of personal trainers out there have no idea of how to properly train the core to get maximal benefit out of the spine. Beyond the obsessive quoting of anything from Dr. Stuart McGill’s 2 fantastic books, most trainers don’t take the time to look into some of the works by people like Sahrmann, Janda, Nickelston, Feldenkrais, McKenzie or any of the other pioneers of spinal care and performance training, opting instead to throw down some of the moves they saw the Bartendaz doing on their middle-aged accountant clients and then wondering why they don’t come back for a few months due to injury.

Each trainer will kind of choose their own educational pathway, which means we can have specialists in a lot of different areas. I’ll be honest, when it comes to bodybuilding contest prep, you’re looking at the wrong guy. I’d be more than happy to refer a potential client out to another qualified trainer if I felt out of my comfort zone. The downside is that we can’t really have the spine be outside our comfort zone when it comes to any kind of exercise in the gym, be it lower body, upper body, “core,” or even basic postural restoration. We need to know as much as possible about the spine to be even remotely effective at what we do as trainers.

That’s why I’m really happy John Izzo has put together a video series on the spine, called ShatterProof Spine, and he’s even put it out for a steep discount for the next few days.

John’s probably one of the most under-rated educators I’ve had the pleasure to view, and he has a definite gift for simplifying complex concepts so they’re easy to absorb, but also drives his point home very well. The blend between theory and practical application used in this video series means anyone who gets it will be able to hit the gym tomorrow with a new arsenal of exercises, and more importantly a defined reason of why to use them and when to use them effectively.

John’s a solid guy, and has decided to offer Shatterproof Spine at a discounted price of only $97 for the next week. This is a solid product, and I would highly recommend any trainers who work with clients who have low back pain, or who even have spines (see above) pick this beauty up today.

===> Get ShatterProof Spine Now!! <===