Most exercisers and even some elite level athletes tend to take stretching and back health for granted. I know that I have definitely been guilty of this from time to time over my exercising career despite telling my clients to be sure to stretch and take care of their back and core.

So, by building this routine I wanted to not only give all of our viewers no excuse to take care of their back but also to keep myself accountable as well.  

Make sure and talk to your doctor before you start any workout routine, especially if you have a history of injury or known weakness. I have developed this back workout routine with post-rehab and preventative exercises in mind.  If you fall into the post-rehab category be sure to get your doctor/physical therapists approval for the exercises in this video as not all of them will be appropriate for everyone.  I have tried to give modifications for those starting from scratch (and/or post rehab) so be sure to listen to my suggestions for beginners and be sure to listen to your body as well. It is always best to use extreme caution when starting back into a routine on recently healed muscles and joints; be sure to physically move slowly as well as progress from one level of difficulty to the next very slowly. 

For those of you doing this back health video with no chronic injuries be sure to start with lowest level of difficulty to properly judge your current core conditioning. Just because an exercise feels easy while doing it does not mean that you won’t be ridiculously sore from it the next day.  Other than that move at a comfortable pace and increase the difficulty as you see fit.

This routine can be done any time of day though if done first thing in the morning you may want to take the time to warm your body up a bit extra before you start. Other than that there are no suggested restrictions as long as you have built up your endurance to be able to do it in conjunction with any other physical activity.

Workout: There is nothing fancy with this routine. It is not timed, and there are no specific number of repetitions. Just run down the list of exercises doing only one set of each for however long you need to to get a very slight muscle fatigue. Once you know how this routine will treat you, feel free to run through for a second or third set to improve endurance and conditioning. 

Workout Structure:
    •    Free Form Routine
    •    No Repetitions
    •    No Time Limit
Equipment:
    •    Exercise Mat (optional)
Warm Up/Cooldown
    •    Not Needed

Workout:

Imprint
Toe Taps
Supine Superman
Reverse Crunch
Rolling Plank
Swimmers
Bird Dog
Cat Camel
Cobra
Childs Pose to Shell Stretch
Seated Toe Touch
Hamstring & Torso Stretch L&R
Deep Glute L&R
Full Body Stretch