Lordosis: Why it Causes Lower Back Pain & How to Fix it
Nov 22nd, 2007 by Mehdi Tags: Injury, Lower Back, Posture
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Your lower back has a natural inward curve. An excessive inward curve is called lordosis. Lordosis is a common cause of lower back pain in strength training & daily activities. This article will help you understand lordosis & how to treat it.
Cause of Lordosis. Lordosis can be caused by excessive weight, pregnancy, spinal problems present at birth, etc. Sitting for extended periods is a common cause of lordosis. Desk jobs, sitting in your couch, sitting in your car all day, …
Your body adapts to these positions. Some muscles shorten & stiffen, others get stretched & weaken. This causes an imbalance: lordosis.
- Hip flexors shorten
- Glutes and abs stretched & weak
- Anterior Pelvic Tilt: your pelvis is pulled forward
Image credit: MedlinePlus
When a muscle tightens on one side of a joint, the muscle on the other side of the joint weakens. This is Reciprocal Inhibition.If you Bench Press without doing Barbell Rows or Overhead Presses, your posterior shoulders get little training compared to your front shoulders. Couple this with reciprocal inhibition and you get bad posture & rotator cuff injuries.
Why is Lordosis Bad? Lordosis is a muscle imbalance combined with bad posture. Lordosis causes:
- Lower Back Pain. Your abs & lower back stabilize your torso. Lordosis stretches your ab muscles, making them weak. Your lower back gets all the work, which results in fatigue & pain.
- Tight Hamstrings. Lack of hamstring flexibility prevents proper exercise technique. Hamstrings get tight during sports lowering performance & increasing the risk of injury (pulled hamstrings).
- Bad Technique. You won’t be able to squeeze your glutes during Squats & Deadlifts . This puts more stress on your lower back & hamstrings, increasing risk of injury. Lower back pain is the first sign.
- Strength Loss. The glutes are one of your strongest muscles. Only using your lower back & hamstrings to lift the weight is less efficient than using all hip muscles. You need to involve your glutes.
- Unattractive. Monkey butt & you look like you’re pregnant.
Self Diagnose. If you have a desk job, sit a lot in your car or if you’re sedentary outside the gym, you probably have lordosis.
- Stand aside a mirror: Butt sticks out? Protruding gut?
- Lower back pain when standing for extended periods?
- Lower back pain during Squats or Deadlifts?
- Hamstrings get tight when playing sports?
Treating Lordosis. You’ll need to stretch the tight muscles & strengthen the weak ones. But lordosis won’t go away without treating the cause: sedentary lifestyle. You need to build better habits for long-term results.
- Sit Less. Avoid sitting in a static position for extended periods. Get up as often as you can. Every 15 mins ideally. Personally I avoid sitting as much as possible. I often eat & wait in queues standing.
- Stand-up Desks. Or kneeling desks. Anything where you’re don’t have a 90° angle at your hips for long periods.
- Desk Stretches. Put your arms overhead, upper-back against your chair. Bring your hips forward by squeezing your glutes hard. Straighten your legs. You’ll be fully extended upper back & hamstrings against the chair, glutes off the chair. I do this one countless times a day.
- Bridges. Glute activation & strengthening exercise. Raise your glutes off the floor by squeezing them as hard as you can. 3 sets of 10 reps.
- Birddogs. Single leg glute activation exercise. Brace your abs & keep your spine neutral. Push back with your heels. 3 sets of 10 reps both sides. Video:
- Hip Flexor Stretches. Use padding for your knees. Keep your torso perpendicular to the floor & your lower back neutral. Think upper leg back, not going down. Squeeze the glute of the back leg. 3 sets of 10 secs each side. Video:
- Hamstring Stretches. Leg Swings. Chest forward, shoulders back, lower back straight & knees unlocked. Look forward. Move your legs, keep your pelvis still. If you can’t get high: keep working at it. Flexibility will come. 3 sets of 10 reps each side. Video:
- Strengthen Abs. Turkish Get-ups are my favorite. 5×5, increasing the weight every session. Video by MTB Strength Training System:
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Hi Mehdi, first of all, great site. I’ve learned more about strength training in the few weeks being subscribed to your RSS feed than i have in years.
My question is, how should the exercises in this article fit in for someone who is on your 5×5 strength training program? Can these be done every day along with the normal workout, or should they be done on alternating days, or not at all? Thanks!
Thanks for subscribing & for the motivating words Tom.
You can do Bridges, Birddogs & legs swings as warm-up. Do the hip flexor stretch at the end of your workout.
If you have lordosis, you’ll see the fastest results by doing these exercises a lot. Every day would be great. The goal here is postural realignment. Bad posture is the result of years of adopting a certain position, it will take some time to fix it. The more you do the exercises, the better. 3x/week works too, but will take longer.
I have lower back pain. Right at the base of my spine. Its a dull pain. I went to the chiropractor and had my spine adjusted. It was good. I had a few more sessions. took about 3 weeks of lifting. I was about 90% recovered i think. No lower back dull pain. But still some hamstring pain on my right leg.
I attempted front squats and some lunges after my three week lay off. Real light weight. Lots of emphasis on keeping my abs tight etc. This morning my back was stiff and the pain has come back, not as bad. But its there. On a scale of 1-10. 10 being extreme pain 1 being nothing iam on 4. But regardless i still wont be able to attempt compound lifts.
What the hell can i do to get rid of this pain and get back to squatting and deadlifting.
Two things Yohan
1) Check your technique
2) Check your posture
Thanks for the article mehdi - very interesting!
Quick question - you say Turkish getups 5×5. Does this mean 5×5 on each side?
@Ed
Thanks. 5×5 on each side indeed.
Great site. I would like to change to you 5×5 program. However I have problems with my back (mainly Lombard spine area).
Started December 2005 when I injured my back while doing dead lift on moderate weights. Went to physiotherapist and got treatment. And 2 exercises to do (reverse hyperextension and Cable Standing Hip Extension) did this for 3×10 once a week. Everything was fine until September 2006 when I injured my back again (same place same feeling) while doing squat (kg around my bodyweight). Again went to physiotherapist after that started to do Birddogs, lying side bends, high Bridges, sit-ups, crunches, floor lying spine extensions once a week and changed to front squats with hands crossed(bodybuilding style) went fine until April 2007 again injured my back in the same region and again went to physiotherapist. Decided to quit squats and started to do leg presses until this date.
I personally think that there are a few reasons why I have problems with my back. 1) very stiff hamstrings, and in addition to this I stopped doing yoga(was doing it 2 times a week for 2 years until half year before injury stopped because new flat in new town and not enough space/not separate room from wife to do yoga) this made med ever more “stiff”.
2) Started to work and went from being a student(I had been training for 2 years before my first injury) not sitting so much, to sitting 8 hours per day in front of a computer.
3) Not the best form and technique on dead lift and squat and I also read that bodybuilding style of fronts squats opens up your back in a bad way.
How to proceed with squats and dead lifts? What kind of squats and dead kifts should I do for this program thinking about my “condition”.
I am really considering taking some private lessons at the closest weightlifting club to really check my technique.
I am currently doing overhead squats(done this for one month when I found out that it was good for abs and pain in higher back) so far with low weights 20kg bara 5×5 and without any back pain.
Best regards
Daniel in Sweden
@Daniel
I recommend starting with an empty barbell on Squat, as laid out in stronglifts 5×5 routine. Very light on deadlifts too (40kg, using 2 plates for correct height). Address any posture imbalance you might have, take a look at your pelvis. Improve hip mobility, lots of stretching for hams. Glute activation so you can use your glutes, and not your lower back, on squats/deadlifts. Lower back problems are common in weight lifting, but these are usually caused by 1) ego 2) bad technique 3) bad posture 4) lack of flexibility. Good luck Daniel.
Hello again. So I should just stick to regulare squats and skip front+overhead suats? or alternate between them?
About deadlift with plates. I was trying the pendlay row last week but due to my stiff hamstrings I had problems to touch the bar without bending my back very much(I already bended my legs/knees alot). Should I also use plates for this excersie or will this decrease the range of motion to much?
Best regards
Daniel
@Daniel
Best is to focus on one exercise to get rapid improvement in technique. Stick with squats or front squats, your call. Rows & deadlifts start with the bar at mid-shin level. You have the right height when using 20kg/45lbs plates. If you use less weight, put small plates on the floor to get the correct height. And work on flexibility so you can perform the exercises correctly.
Hello,
I myself have lordosis of the spine and have come across this blog post from a Google search. I’m now wondering how often should these excercises on here be performed? Can these excercises actually help, and with what time-length would we see any differences? My spine is like how it is shown in the illustration at the very top of the page and it seems to me almost as if it is ‘permanent’? Additionally, I do not go to the gym but would there be any point in doing so for someone with lordosis of the spine?
To be honest I think it’s “just” caused by me using a laptop computer for years and years and, with me being so tall, almost being like an eagle looking down at the screen on my desk. And I also have the tendency to move forward closer to the screen when I am using it.
Regards
(sorry for all the questions!!)
Hey Mehdi just a quick question. Will Deadlifting and Squatting make my lordosis worse or is the slight ‘discomfort’ (you could call it pain) the only consequence.
And to recap, working my glutes and stretching my hip flexors will fix my spine to its neutral position?
Now I’m all excited to see how I look without that annoying swayback posture. I wish I had done these exercise 10 years ago.
I have lordosis - have had it all my life but believe it is getting worse with age and I have had 4 children. I try to do pilates but alot of the moves require your back to be flat on the ground and mine will not do that. I have 2 questions - first, I have some round, hard lumps that cause some pain in the dimple areas of my lower back. Could they be a result of the curve. Second - should I see a chiropractor for help with this or would exercises at home be just the same? Thanks