The failure of many back rehab programs is to start with strengthening, not realizing that the cause of back pain was a flawed or suboptimal movement pattern. The first exercises that any woman should do are corrective exercises. Everyone is slightly different, so you can determine what’s right through provocative testing, going through different postures under different loads and in different motions that cause you to say “ouch!” A good clinician will figure out what hurts and what can help. You will not find a quick fix for all back disorders.

ANSWERED BY:
Stuart McGill, Ph.D., professor of the Spine Biomechanics Lab at the University of Waterloo and author of Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance (Stuart McGill, 2006) and Low Back Disorders: Evidence-based Prevention and Rehabilitation (Human Kinetics, 2007).