Back at you!

It’s probably completely natural to forget stuff that is not right in front of us.  “Out of sight, out of mind” is a proverb we all know.  But that stuff we don’t see can sneak up on us!

Which is why I’m going to talk about working out the back of the body today.  Our backs, by definition, are not right in front of our faces so we tend to forget them.  Until they hurt.  Which is not ideal.

 

As I’m sure we all recall from our physics (yes, I am joking right now!), for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  In the body, that means that what bends needs to stretch.  Muscles work by pulling on bones, so one set pulls us one way and another set does the work in the opposite direction.  We want both sets of those muscles to develop in balanced ways to maintain our maximal range of motion.

 

If we only work the muscles in the front of our bodies, we create an imbalance.  The front muscles get chronically shortened and the ones in the back get chronically lengthened.  If this was just about aesthetics, we could probably learn to live with that, but when muscles are too long or too short, they become less strong.  That is not okay.

 

When we work our backs, one of the first things we may notice is that our posture improves.  (All right, the first thing we might notice is that we are sore in new places.  Once that goes away, we notice the good posture.)  Good posture is something we want because it makes our bodies move more efficiently, helps us breathe more deeply, and even makes us look thinner.

 

Working the back of the body also helps, paradoxically, to reduce back pain.  Stronger muscles can do more before they get achy!  This is also the part where I remind us all that our core muscles do not begin and end with our abdominals.  They go all the way around our bodies.  Working our back muscles works our core, with all the implications for excellent function, balance, and general happiness that implies.

 

Those of us who sit a lot (that’s all of us!) benefit from working the back of the body to counteract the negative effects of all that chair time.  Speaking from personal experience, sometimes my hips need to remember what it means to straighten up; those flexors aren’t going to relax themselves!

 

Those of us who have breasts to support will also benefit from working the back.  It takes a fair amount of strength to carry those around without distorting our posture.

 

Now that we’ve gone over some of the reasons to work the back, let’s talk about how.  We want to throw some lat pulldowns, some deadlifts, some rows, and some reverse flies into our exercise mix to get the muscles of the back of the body in gear.

 

Go play.