"Flatten your low back" is a cue

Somewhere along the way, “flatten your low back” became a universal fitness cue. It shouldn’t be. There are absolutely times in rehab or exercise when changing pelvic or spinal position is useful. But that doesn’t mean your lumbar spine needs to be pressed flat against a bench or the floor every time you load your body. Your spine naturally has curves, and those curves vary between people. There also isn’t one exact “neutral” position that every body needs to maintain during every exercise. Take the bench press: research comparing flatter and arched setups has found that an arched position can reduce bar displacement and, in trained lifters, allow slightly greater maximal loads—without increasing pec activation simply because the back is flatter. (PubMed Central (PMC)) And visually judging the space under someone’s low back isn’t a great way to determine their spinal position. Individual lumbar shape varies, and pelvis/hip position can change lumbar angles. (PubMed) This doesn’t mean spinal position doesn’t matter or that “anything goes.” It means the goal of strength training isn’t to force everyone into one predetermined spinal position. Instead, think: Is the position appropriate for the exercise? Can I stabilize and control it under load? Can I maintain it as I fatigue? Does it allow me to effectively train the target muscles without signs of intolerance? That’s a much more useful framework than obsessing over whether there’s a gap under your low back. @natalapp #ALLin