Healthy Back: The Best and Worst Things to Do with Emily Lark

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The biggest mistake people are making is that they're resting their back. And that comes from two things. One, doctors used to prescribe bed rest for back pain. It makes us more tense, more stiff, more weak when really we need to keep moving through the pain in order to get over it.

Here's jj, Virgin triple board certified nutrition and fitness expert and four time New York Times best selling author. It's time to reignite wellness.

Hey, hey, hey. Today we are talking about back pain. Apparently it's like 8 out of 10 of us suffer from this at some point. So the great news is there is so much that you can do about this. If this has become like just something. Because I know what it feels like just to have like that chronic naggy pain just really kind of shuts down your good mood, makes you a little crabby. So if that is you, if you've been struggling with any kind of back pain, or maybe your spouse or children or parents are, this is the episode for you because we have some simple, actionable steps that you can do to start turning this around now, which is super awesome. And I have the perfect person here to talk about this with me. I have Emily Lark. Emily Lark is a speaker, author, fitness expert and created the international best selling program Back to Life. First of all, great name for a program like Way to Win on that one. And she really has the perfect hero's journey to be doing this. She was in a car accident when she was 12 and suffered with debilitating back pain for years. And so she created this to heal her own back pain and now has literally helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world do the same. So we have some great tips for you that again you'll be able to put into immediate action and if it's not something, something you're dealing with right now, some information that can help you hopefully never have to deal with it or at least if you do know exactly what to do. All right, now before we dive into that, I do want to do a shout out to Katie Joy B. Who gave me a five star review on Apple podcast. She says heartfelt health, JJ and her incredibly knowledgeable guests talk all things health related, but it's so much more than that. You'll get tons of actionable advice and tangible tips, but you'll also get heaps of inspiration from truly engaging individuals that genuinely want to help others. Thanks so much for putting out such a spectacular show, jj. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you so much and I super appreciate these reviews. If you've not left one yet, big ass to have you do that. And while you're there, first of all, you can subscribe. So all you do is go over to subscribetoj.com that's the super cool link that my team got me. So it's really easy to do this. Make sure you subscribe because we've gone into season two, which means we've also created some new fun stuff, which is every week we have a great interview with the guest. And you know, I have the best guests because I have a lot of super cool friends in the health world, so people you may have never heard of before, which is even more fun. And then I'm doing a solo interview each week and then Friday Q and A and I'm doing those really based on the questions I'm getting asked what you guys tell me you want to hear more about. So if there's something you'd like to know more about, you can leave a review and let me know. Or you can always jump on Instagram @jj virgin or Facebook JJ Virgin official and let me know there because we are scouring all of the social platforms for things you would like to learn more about. Because this podcast is yours. There you go. Alrighty. Now, before we dive in, I want to share one more cool thing with you. Here we go.

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Emily Lark, welcome to the show. Super excited you're here.

Thank you so much. It's such an honor.

All right, well, I want to know because we were kind of geeking out a bit about back pain before we got on here, but I want to know why you decided to like, become this expert in back pain.

That's a good question. It was never the plan, but it was really through my own journey with back pain. I was in a really bad car accident when I was just a kid and had back pain, chronic back pain from the age of 12 years old all the way up through my late 20s. During that time, went through every kind of specialist you can imagine to try to fix my pain. And it wasn't until I got serious about kind of fixing it myself that I, that I was finally able to get out of pain. And that was a life changing moment for me. And I've been pain free for the last decade. And of course, that just completely sparked the passion in me for wanting to help other people figure this out for themselves as well.

Well, I know the reason. So here's the real reason why I studied it in grad school as we were talking offline. I did all of my grad work in biomechanics because I love math and it's like math and physics was what biomechanics was. And I decided to study back pain because everybody had it. So it's like, this is a great thing to go into. But, you know, I see that you're saying the stats are like 80% of people like, what the heck is going on?

Yes. You know, I mean, and I'M sure I'd love to hear your take on this, too. I mean, I just personally believe that we're just not moving our bodies the way we're meant to move them anymore. And we're spending so much time sitting, and we're spending so much time on computers and smartphones. And people often think that they injure their back from being too active, when really it's the opposite. We're not active enough. And so then.

Here'S what used to drive me crazy. So I remember this was 25 years ago. Actually, it was 30 years ago. So here I'm in graduate school, and I'm also a personal trainer. And they are telling us that if you have a back issue, that you should never do any extension work with your back. You should only do flexion. You should only do abdominals. If your back. If your back is weak, then you need to strengthen your abs. And I'm like, but if your back's weak, don't you need to strengthen your back, like, and, you know, don't do squats, don't do bending forward, don't. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you're just going to make this weaker and weaker and weaker. So that was my take on all of it, was like, we're, you know, we're doing just the opposite of what we need to do in our whole activities of daily living are whacked.

But I couldn't agree more.

Whack. To the scientific word, it's whack. So, all right, so someone's got back pain. And I know. And I actually then after that, I worked in a physical therapy office for a while. But what I saw, what I was doing to help people heal their back pain was not what was common knowledge. And I think what people think they need to do is, is creating more problems. So let's kind of address that as to, you know, someone has back pain, you know, what are you seeing them do that they. That they think is helping? That probably isn't.

The biggest mistake people are making is that they're resting their back. And that comes from two things. One, doctors used to prescribe bed rest for back pain.

But my back hurts if I'm in bed too much.

Yes, absolutely. And it makes us more tense, more stif, More weak. The other thing is that, you know, pain is an interesting thing because when we're in pain, we think we need to stop what we're doing and sit down to heal. And that's very much a, you know, a real signal that we hear from the body. So it's kind of twofold. We're getting mixed messages from our body and when really we need to keep moving through the pain in order to get over it.

And that was one of the things that I used to have people do, but it was always hard because their doctors told them differently. So moving through it. And then what about, like, different exercises they might be doing or might have been told they shouldn't do?

Oh, my gosh. I mean, I hear the same thing all the time, like you were talking about. People often say, okay, well, if you've had a disc issue, you shouldn't twist anymore or you shouldn't bend anymore. And really, the more. The more mobile we keep our spines, the more malleable and more flexible and more easily our discs adjust to things. So it's the movement that keeps our. Keeps the discs in our spines able to bounce back more quickly. Obviously, if somebody has a severe, you know, eruption of a disc, then there are certain things that they need to be careful about. But overall, the more mobile we keep our spines, it's kind of like a. Like a tree branch. The more it can bend, the less it's going to break.

Well, yeah. And I mean, like, if you are not moving in all directions, like if you look at our spine, our spine was not created just to move. Bend forward and back.

Yes.

Otherwise it would be a hinge joint. It would be like your knee. It wouldn't be like your spine. So, yeah. And then you have these discs. They're like jelly donuts. So if all you do is go forward and back and you kind of avoid the back because you were told you shouldn't extend, which I never understood. And so you're not doing anything else, all that jelly is going to get smooshed into. Into the back. And then you do something wrong and boof, you got a problem. Yes. Yes. Okay, so we are in total agreement there now. So someone's got back pain. So what should they do?

Well, obviously, number one, keep moving. But I like to focus on the two main things of mobility and stability at the same time. And so stabilizing the muscles in the core that help support the low back, but also that help support the pelvis as well. We forget how important the pelvis is really as the foundation for the rest of the spine. So I like to teach people a lot of exercises for the core, especially that focus on the lower core muscles. And then the mobility side of it is keeping that mobility. I always recommend that people move their spine in all six directions every day. Which is a side bend to the right and the left, a twist to the right and the left, and then a forward bend and a back bend. Those are the six motions that I. That I think we all need to be doing every single day. Very intense.

Well, how much. How much you need to be doing that every single day?

Mm. I like to tell people to do it three times a day. You can do it while you're sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They're so simple to do. You can sit in your seat and bend to the side, bend to the side, twist and look behind you. Twist and look behind you, and then a forward and a back bend. So I think three times a day is easy to remember. And honestly, I think that's plenty. Even once a day is great. It's more than 99% of us do.

And, I mean, we're not taking. That doesn't take any time.

No, no.

So that is super easy. Okay. So we've got the mobility, and when you talk stability, like you mentioned, two things, and I, again, I keep thinking back to when I first started to work in this, and they. The emphasis was always on strengthening your abs. And no talk about pelvis or low back. So what. What would you do there?

So my two favorite powerhouses for the lower back are the, you know, the core, the abs, but also the glute muscles. I believe that when you have strong glute muscles and a strong core, that works like a nice sandwich for the pelvis, and then it helps the muscles in the back release. Oftentimes when people have a muscle that's tight. In our society, we equate tightness with strength, when really, the stronger your muscles are, the less tight they need to be. They're not straining as much, so they're much less inclined to spasm out and get tight on you. So the stronger we get our muscles, the more they can actually relax and support our skeletal system with ease.

Yeah. Makes complete sense. So then, beyond just those simple, like, mobility things, what about someone who is. You know, I'm sitting here right now taping this podcast, even though I have a standing desk. I'm not. I'm sitting on my.

Me, too.

Oh, well, yeah, I just was looking at that, going, you know, you set this, the standing desk here, honey, for a reason. But you're sitting and, you know, hey, I travel on planes a lot. Like, what can you do if. I mean, because I think that's reality for a lot of us. Right?

For sure. I love to teach people stretches and and strengthening moves we can do while we're sitting. So right now, as we're sitting here, two very, very simple ones that we can do. The first one is a stretch for the hip muscles. A lot of times, actually, sciatica and low back pain is ca. Tight hip muscles and tight glutes. So a really simple way to stretch those out while you're sitting at your desk. You just take one ankle, you cross it over the other knee, and then the. The knee that's bent, the knee that has the ankle that's crossed. You're just going to gently press your knee down a little bit and lean forward, and you'll feel a nice stretch right in that. In that back glute. And you can do that while you're sitting at computer, while you're sitting at dinner with someone. They don't even need to know you're stretching, because it looks like you're just kind of crossing your leg and leaning forward.

Wait, you would sit in a restaurant and do this? Because I'm doing it right now. So I put my ankle on my one knee, and I'm thinking, but not in a skirt. You're not doing this.

No, no, no.

Okay. And if you're driving, do not do this right now. If you're driving. No, no, no, no. But if you are listening or you're at the gym, super. This is a super good one. I like to do this one, too. Like, lying on the floor. I'll take an exercise ball, and I will put my ankle on my other knee, and I'll roll the ball in.

Oh, yeah.

Yes. I love that.

That'll really get it deep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so we got that one. What other ones?

So the other one I like to focus on is the, you know, the core strength while you're sitting. And so, I mean, the. The easiest thing we can do is sit up in a chair without using the back of the chair, because automatically your core muscles and your back muscles are engaged. Gonna engage just to keep you sitting upright with your shoulders stacked right above your hips and your ears right above your shoulders. And then to help int. A really easy way to challenge your core is to try if you have your feet kind of planted right on the floor, right under your knees. If you just lift one knee up a few inches, all of a sudden you feel your core muscles engage just to hold that knee up. And you can either hold it up for, you know, a count of 10 and lower it down, or sometimes I like to do marching side to side, where I'll Lift my right knee and then my left knee while I'm working. And so you can literally work your ab muscles while. While you're sitting there.

You really should have, like, you know, the nanny cam where they have, like, you should really. Or I think it was the Jenny cam. Like, the first, like, kind of reality TV at home. Yeah, you should just do that so people can just follow this. Go. Okay. I need to be doing.

Yeah, we do. While we work.

Yeah. Because I was, like, instantly going, all right, is she using the back of her chair right now? She's sitting up straight.

Thankfully, I'm not on camera, so you can. So this is the thing. It's like, do as I say, not as I do, because I'm sitting right now, too. I'm not doing this. Friend of mine. Actually, a friend of mine gave me a great tip. He said, emily, you just need to raise your standing desk up to standing level. Because I. I said. I bought it a year ago. I. I stand at it maybe 10% of the time. He said, just raise it up to standing level, unplug it, and then throw away the cord, and never. You'll never be able to sit at that desk again.

Oh, well, I don't know that I'm ready to make that kind of like. Except that I have, like, I have. I have a. The. I have. The real standing desk is downstairs in the garage. I have this other one that I use kind of to create a set that goes up and down, so. But it's not electric. It's. It's a thingy. The electric ones downstairs.

Okay.

Relegated to the garage.

Yeah.

So I don't know. I'm. I've. I will definitely make a commitment to raise this up. I actually got a standing desk set at the beginning because I felt like doing interviews and stuff. You're better off when you're standing. And then I forgot and set it down. So. All right, what about exercise? So we've got some stretches, and we've got things you can do while seating, which is sitting. But what about exercise in general? Like, what. What should someone do with back pain?

So I. Number one. Well, there are two things I believe. First and foremost, we need to do strength training as our. As our main approach to back pain, knee pain, every kind of pain we have. Again, the stronger we are, the more support we have for our joints, our back, our spine, everything. I just feel like strength training is the first thing everyone should be doing, and then the perfect complement to that is yoga. You know, just simple, gentle yoga classes. So then we're covering the stability with the strength training and we're continuing the mobility with the yoga. That, that is what start I do. Those are the things I do on a daily and a weekly basis that, that keep me pain free now.

I liked you so much and then you had to bring up the Y word.

Not a fan.

You know, it's so funny is I love strength training. And so every year around New Year's, I'd make the whole New Year's resolution. I'm gonna start the Y thing and, and then, you know, I, my husband's. I start dating. We're gonna start the Y thing together. We actually will go to one of them. And I think now because I. Knee injury when I was in my, you know, when I was 17, I blew out my ACL and then had it repaired multiple times and finally I'd have a knee replacement at 51, but I think it was because I couldn't get into the poses because my leg would slide out, you know, like, it would literally slide out. I'm like, oh, this is not comfortable. And. And then I ended up with a hip problem from a dog attack. So I was like going, you know, it's just like every single thing I do, I have to adjust. But I think I'm at the point where I'm ready to give it another, give it another shot. I want to be the person who loves yoga. I want, like, I see myself there.

Like running, right? Like, I hate running, but I know if I do it long enough, I start to run it. I think every. Or I start to love it if I do it long enough. I think everyone hates yoga in the beginning. I hated yoga in the beginning. I just think it's one of those things with repetition it becomes more enjoyable, but it also, you have to have the right instructor too that can show you the modifications so you're not just feeling horrible the whole time you're doing it.

Yes. So I've, I've still got to go back and do it again and probably have someone just come over and work with us. But it's, it's gone back on that keeps going on the list and then I like take it off the list. And.

Strength training, right? That's your.

I love strength training. I do HIIT training, high intensity interval training and strength training. And I throw some, some flexibility stuff in. Not, I admit it, it's definitely. I just went to an amazing biomechanist here in town to basically have him yell at me about the fact that I like him not doing Enough. And I'm like, I know. I remember back when I was a personal trainer and I had one woman who I would go to her house to tell her to get on the treadmill. And I go, you know, like, I'll just call you. And she goes, no, no, I need you to come here and tell me to get on the treadmill and stand here and make sure I don't get off the treadmill. And I go, go. Really? Because, like, we could have someone else do this. Like, you don't really need me to do this. I'm thinking I went to grad school to tell someone to get on and off a treadmill, but she goes, no, no, I really need you to do this. And. And, like, entertain me while I'm. I'm like, okay, well, so. But I. I get it now because I'm like, going, if I just had someone come over and make me do this thing, right, you know, I totally get it. So I'm, you know, for Vicki, who I gave so much grief to. I get it, Vicki. Anyway, all right, well, I know we have a really fun. A fun gift for everybody. So let's talk through what your Healthy back checklist has on it.

Yeah. So I wanted to come up with something just really simple daily tweaks that you make can make to your life that can help with back pain. And so I came up with the Healthy back Checklist. And it has just little simple takeaways that take no time and effort, but can really make a big difference, like sleeping positions that are best for back pain or how to carry your bags to prevent back pain or the best kind of footwear. So just very, very simple things that people can implement in their life. Because sometimes really, it can be just one. One little shift can make a huge difference.

Perfect. So, you know, I think the biggest takeaway here is, you know, and we're not talking about if you have, like, you know, blown a disc. That's an entirely different situation. But for most people, I would assume that their back pain is probably just from, you know, of daily living, not moving correctly, not. Not strengthening, stretching correctly. And so these are things that you can shift and, you know, shift fairly quickly. So that is going to be something you're want to. Going to grab and you're going to be able to get that@jj virgin.com forward/healthy back again. JJ virgin.com healthy back. And Emily, thank you so much. I know it took us a while to get this organized to do. I've been wanting to have you on for a while. So I, I so appreciate your time.

Thank you so much. It was well worth the wait for me. I've been looking forward to this for.

A long time and I will see you at a couple different things in the next, next six to 12 months, I hope.

Thank you.

Perfect. Cool. All right now after the break, stay with me. I'm going to go through a couple top takeaways from today that you can put into immediate action.

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Hey, welcome back. There were a lot of great pearls and you know, like, I like to take this time to issue marching orders to give you what you should do, what you can take away from this podcast. And honestly, whether you have back pain or not, the mobility little brief that Emily shouted out is one that we should all be doing. And I thought, gosh, that is just genius. And this is like one of those things that you can do while you're standing waiting in line for coffee, while you're cooking. This is just while you're brushing your teeth. So I loved the little six way mobility that she talked about, which is bend forward, extend back, that's flexion, extension. And then you are just going to do a twist to the right and a twist to the left and then a lateral, it's called lateral flexion. But a lateral bend to one side and lateral bend to the other. That's it. If you can do it three times a day, super awesome. Let's focus on at least getting in once a day. And I would throw that into your journal and say, you know, six way done, right? So just get that in. So it's a habit and here's why it's so important. So our spine. And again this was, I was a in graduate school, my all my focus was in spinal biomechanics and I did a whole bunch of work in spinal lifting biomechanics. And the deal is you have this spine which you want to think of as plates and jelly donuts. And just think about if you had a bunch of plates and in between each plate was a jelly donut. And if those plates all were pushed a little bit forward and stayed that way, the jelly donut would over time squish to the back. And then what happens is one wrong forceful move could push all that jelly donut squishy stuff, all the jelly straight out the back. Right? If you were to smush it, I know that's super scientific, but the what you want to do is keep all the jelly evenly distributed, which is why that six way mobility exercise is so key and critical. And that's what yoga does too. And I know the Y word, I swear I'm working into it. But that's where yoga and doing as much variation of movement is so key and critical because we tend to start to avoid things that hurt. But that's actually the worst thing that you can do here. So six way mobility, that is what I'm issuing as my charge, my challenge to you to get that going so that we can keep that spine healthy. And remember two to grab Emily's healthy Back checklist. And you can get that at jjvirgin.com forward/healthyback. Super simple. We put great show notes together so you can get everything there as well as the link to her checklist. And then if you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe to jj@subscribetojay.com and while you're there, leave a review so I can shout you out next time. All right, see you next time. Bye.

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