Lock your legs, hands on hips, bend backward to test your spine mobility. Limited range means heavy deadlifts and overhead presses stress your L4-L5 disc. Do 20 reps, film it, send it to your coach.
The next assessment is a backbend assessment, and what this is going to do is going to show us the mobility of the lumbar spine, and this is going to decide whether we're able to give you deadlifts and overhead presses. So some people, believe it or not, if you've got good mobility, when they do a backbend, this is their range of motion. That's all they've got. And if you're in that camp, then you really shouldn't be doing deadlifts or any overhead movements, because when you do an overhead movement, particularly with a barbell, you may want to lean forward, which is going to place a lot of pressure into that L4-L5. So all it is is you're Your legs are locked, arms on hips, and you're bending back. And we're gonna see and assess how your lumbar spine and your thoracic spine is coping when it bends backwards into this range of motion. So this is just an assessment. This can be a warmup exercise for some people, believe it or not, as well, who have bulged discs and things like this, because we're putting it into that interior flexion of that lumbar spine. So this is great for a bulged disc, as much as it is an assessment tool. So do that one, do 20 reps if you need to, but send it to your coach and then we're going to be able to assess.
