If you don't have time for full-fledged training complexes for the whole body, you can do the bar. This is an effective exercise, for which it is enough to allocate up to 5 minutes a day, and after a month you can get the first results. But it often happens that after the plank, your back hurts, and this discourages the desire to continue classes. Why does pain occur? And can you get rid of them, or will you have to give up the bar?
Benefits of exercise and working muscles
A person feels cheerful if the muscle corset is maintained in good shape. And with the correct execution of the bar, the necessary muscles that make up its basis are just strained:
- belt (neck);
- deltoid and large (chest);
- rhomboid, deltoid and broadest (back);
- square and iliac (loin);
- straight and outward (belly);
- intermediate, wide, medial, straight, tailor (thighs);
- anterior tibial (tibia).
© Makatserchyk - stock.adobe.com
It is logical that after the plank the lower back hurts: after all, it is involved in the exercise. It will take a lot of time to pump each muscle group separately, and the bar allows you to achieve similar results in 2-4 minutes a day. It does not only give cardio, so you can do a warm-up run before doing the exercise.
How to make the plank correctly?
Only the right implementation will give results. Also, adherence to the technique will help avoid lower back pain after the plank. There are many modifications to the exercise. Consider its most popular type, which most often starts with - the classic straight bar on the elbows (forearms). You need to lie on your stomach and fully straighten. Then rest on the floor with your toes and put your hands on your forearms. Next, we track the position of each part of the body.
- Head. Raised slightly, and eyes look forward. Or to the floor.
- Shoulders. Perpendicular to the floor.
- Forearms. Lie completely on the floor.
- Chest. Doesn't touch the floor.
- Back. Smooth, without deflection or arching.
- Small of the back. Smooth, does not fail.
- Buttocks. Tense, not bulging.
- Stomach. Tense, does not sag.
- Legs. Straight, toes on the floor.
© undrey - stock.adobe.com
You need to stand in the bar motionless, without relaxing any part of the body. The optimal time is 1 minute. 3 approaches should be done per day.
Is pain after or during exercise normal?
The bar requires serious effort, so it is difficult for an unprepared person to stand for a whole minute the first time. Already after 10-15 seconds, the body will begin to tremble treacherously, and for some, when the plank is being performed, the lower back or back begins to hurt, which also interferes with maintaining the prescribed time. If there really is back discomfort, you need to stop and understand its causes.
Back pain
It is normal for your back to hurt after the plank, but only if it is muscle pain. Remember your first fitness trip - the next morning your legs hurt so much that it was impossible to get out of bed? This is muscle overload, which happens when you immerse yourself too actively in physical culture. And the back muscles stop sore after the plank after about 2 weeks, when the body gets used to regular stress.
If it is joint pain, the problem is more serious. These can be the consequences of scoliosis, kyphosis or other pathologies of the spine. Such painful sensations will not go away after a while, but will only intensify.
Lumbar pain
This area hurts most often because it takes the load off the upper body. The constant carrying of weights, sedentary work, the wrong technique for lifting something heavy from the floor - all this leads to chronic osteochondrosis of the lumbosacral region. This disease may not make itself felt until the lower back is heavily loaded.
With the plank, the lower back often hurts due to insufficient tension in the abdominal muscles. If the press is relaxed, then a double load comes on the lumbar region. So she can't stand it. The pain can be piercing, sharp, which indicates serious protrusions and the need to urgently see a doctor. But more often the pain is growing, aching, and does not pass for a long time - the exercise must be interrupted and not resumed until the pain sensations pass. And a specialist consultation will not be superfluous either.
By the way! If after the exercise the plank hurts the lower back or the whole back, but there are no pathologies of the musculoskeletal system, then you are doing something wrong (the technique has not been followed).
How to get rid of pain?
It is illogical and impractical to abandon the bar for temporary and mild pain in the spine or lower back, because one of the effects of this exercise is to strengthen the back muscles. Therefore, you need to understand the causes of pain and do everything so that they do not appear. Or learn to quickly get rid of them.
| What does it hurt and when? | Back or lower back muscles during the plank. | Muscles of the back or lower back after the plank. | Spine or lower back during planking. | Spine or lower back after the plank. |
| What to do? | Stop the exercise, lie on the floor for a couple of minutes, completely relaxing. | Take a warm salt bath. Return to exercise only after elimination of pain. | Assess the correctness of implementation. Or choose another type of plank. | |
| Stop exercising, lie on the floor until the pain goes away. | Do not resume exercise until pain is gone. | |||
| Additional recommendations | The next bar should be 10-30 seconds less so that pain does not appear again. You can gradually increase the duration. | See a neurologist or surgeon. | ||
Contraindications to exercise
On the part of the musculoskeletal system, there are the following contraindications for performing the bar:
- spinal injury;
- herniated intervertebral discs;
- pinched nerves;
- exacerbation of diseases of the back and spine (arthrosis, sciatica, kyphosis, lordosis, radiculitis, etc.)
Only by determining why the lower back hurts after the plank, you can correct the situation and get rid of uncomfortable and painful sensations. If you cannot understand the reasons on your own, you should contact a specialist and consult with him. Or do the bar under the supervision of an instructor in the fitness center.
