How To Strengthen Weak Back Muscles

         Strengthening weak muscles is a big reason why you have back pain. Adding the lack of exercise and sitting for extended periods of time together, equals a long, painful life. The muscle groups that need to be focused on to help reduce back pain are the core and the legs. When diving into each workout, I will point out which areas and muscle groups benefit from this to help guide you in your training.         

        A crunching motion such as a sit up or a weighted crunch machine focuses on the upper abdominal muscle. This muscle group is important because it is the center of your body and core. Leg raises work on the lower abdominal muscles. These can be done laying on your back or using a leg raise machine. Lower abdominals are important because it completes the strengthening of the front, central core. Moving to the lateral core, the muscles to focus on here are the QLs and the obliques. My favorite exercises for the muscle groups are the QL extension and the Oblique Roller Machine respectively. These exercises are important because the work the outside of the core, which are responsible for a lot of rotational movement. Golf and Disc Golf are sports that are difficult to play when experiencing rotational pain, so working on these will help that a lot. The last part of the core is the lower back, which I like to do back extensions for. 

        The exercises for leg strengthening are simple yet very difficult. The main muscle groups to work here are the hamstrings, glutes, quadriceps, and hips. Exercises that I enjoy for these muscle groups are leg press, leg extension, leg curl, and hip abductor/adductor machine.