How to fix your own back - exercise three

Again this is a variation on exercise two; this time you add some ankle weights. If you don't have ankle weights you can use heavy boots. If you wish to purchase ankle weights they are available at sports stores, and also at Amazon (c) (see the Amazon link at the bottom of the page).

The rules again:

Any pain, stop.

Only do the exercise on alternate days and 3 days a week. Excessive repetition does not help.

When you can easily do the twenty sets, you can add a little more weight if you wish.

Total time to do this exercise each week is less than 3 minutes (so you can find time).

After a few weeks of exercise number three at twenty sets, you can reduce to twice a week if you like. I have continued with three times usually, but occasionally only doing two days. But, you must keep the exercises up. You may suffer a recurrence of pain if you do something silly (as I did after about a year of no pain at all). In that case, take the cautious option and start again on the program. The key here is that a trauma can make the multifidus muscles group stop functioning properly again; so you need to keep the exercise routing going.


The book that these exercises come from is given below. The advice in this great book is based on CLINICAL EVIDENCE and not hear-say, that is why these exercises work. If you have a back problem, no matter what you think is the cause or where it is painful, you must try these exercises. You can also get the book as a reference, it is far less than the cost of ONE visit to a chiropracter. That said, it is a good idea to visit a chiropracter twice a year for a maintenance check-up probably.