Low Back Pain With Pulling Exercises??

Lower back pain for many of our clients is the MOST frustrating obstacle that gets in the way of continuing their journey to feeling stronger and more confident.

It is typically easier to work around ankle pain, knee pain, and shoulder pain. But low back pain takes away so many options to maintain our physical and mental health.

So to help you out, I want to go over a 3 step road map I start with most of clients that have lower back pain with rowing in the gym.

None of this information is meant to substitute medical advice, it is educational in nature. It is always suggested you get professional medical advice before moving forward with any of these activities (however most people reading this have either seen a medical professional, or they want to try something on their own first before getting a consult :).

We can’t out rehab or train constant irritation to your low back, so I linked a couple of posts that go over a couple of positions and concepts to avoid.

Being able to achieve the position and FEEL how to get your spine in a more neutral position before you pick up weights is essential for alleviating pain.

This is where having someone coach you through the sensation is important, because it looks easy (but everyone needs a little help with it, ESPECIALLY athletes).

AKA finding a neutral spine/ getting back to relax
Its a longer exhale than you think, but don’t let your 6 pack muscle get involved

If you get relief from the general road map above with your rows, AWESOME! If you’re still struggling after a week with the same pain click on the link here to hop on a phone call to see how we can help!

7 Exercise Gamer Warm Up Program

Ideal warm ups and workouts designed for GAMERS is absolutely necessary to improve performance, and increase career longevity.

This biggest problem with all of the warm ups for GAMERS I’ve seen online is none of the warm ups or workouts address the REAL issue for improving physical performance, and preventing injury.

That’s why I designed the Gamer Workout Program.

Every gamer would ideally need a customized loadout for their warm up routine, but I wanted to provide an example that I think would help a lot of people out.

This warm up targets:

  • Fingers and hands
  • Elbows
  • Shoulders and neck
  • Back
  • Eye Positions

Here is a break down of each of the exercises:

1. High Sitting Back Expansion Breathing

  • Goal: Learn to “reach with your ribs” during a longer than usual exhale
  • Set up: Sit with your hips higher than your knees/ elbows resting on surface/ hands in line or just outside of the elbow
  • Feels like: Shoulders are tired/ pull down between the shoulder blades/ back lower ribs and space between shoulder blades expand on the inhale.

2. Rockback Lazy Bear Breathing

  • Goal: Make the exhale and “reach with your ribs and elbows” a little more difficult
  • Set Up: Make sure elbows are like train tracks with your knees/ DO NOT let the elbows roll out
  • Feels like: Shoulders are a little tired just getting into position/ The exhale and reach gets the shoulders working and feeling a pull between the shoulder blades
  • What does this do?: This is actually the 1st step to getting rid of forward shoulders, NOT pulling them back (I know the internet and authorities have told you otherwise)

3. Hands and Knees (aka Quadruped) Breathing

  • Goal: Get the shoulders in the fastest position to game in (creates the most space for blood flow and decompress the nerves coming down from your neck into your hands)
  • Set Up: Knees under hips/ Hands under shoulders/ Feel the palm of your hand on the pinky side, and the 1st knuckle of your pointer finger.
  • Feels like: Less pull between shoulder blades, but should feel expansion on the INHALE in the chest, and stretch in the hands
  • P.S. These actually create long term changes to the flexibility in your hands and wrists rather than just pulling on them.

4. Low Oblique Sit with Push Away

  • Goal: Get the elbows, ribs, and eyes ready to assume the gaming position for a long time. Helps the shape of the body and eyes to move faster with LESS EFFORT.
  • Set Up: Whatever side you are on, try to get the palm on the pinky side of your hand down, the inside of your elbow, your hip and the outside of the knee. Have a dot on the wall about 20 feet away from you to look up at.
  • Feels like: Shoulder and forearm get tired/ When sagging into the floor ribs on bottom side expand on inhale, and opposite side when pushing away.

5. Egg Rolls

  • Goal: Gets the back and shoulders loosened up, plus helps to quickly locate targets with the eyes.
  • Set Up: Sit on the ground with your knees bent and holding your shins
  • Feels like: Your rocking on the ground.
  • P.S. Make sure the dot is still in the distance. Every time you come back up to sitting try and locate the the dot to bring it into focus before you go back down again.

6. Heels Elevated Assisted Squat Holds

  • Goal: Get the body used to the stress of the sitting position without compensating and settling into a slower and more compressed posture while gaming.
  • Set Up: Make sure your entire foot is on a ramp surface/ Hands using a sturdy kitchen sink to lean back on the heels
  • Feels like: Start on your heels, as your shin go forward don’t let the heels lift at all, but the weight will be evenly distributed between the ball of your feet and the inside of your heels.

7. Hear Hold Breathing

  • Goal: Get the shoulders, neck, elbows, hands ready to endure the high stress of Esports.
  • Set Up: Same starting position as the quadruped breathing, now just lifting the knees off the ground.
  • All the feels from quadruped breathing, just more intense in the abs (but NO CRUNCHING)

The examples above for meant to be for educational purposes only. It is in no way meant to be medical or professional advice.

The truth about nearly every piece of Gamer warm up content on the internet coming out of the United States at this time are only considering the location of pain as the SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM.

The Gamer Workout Program and Gaming Workout 1 on 1 Rehab are applying principles from the highest level traditional sports training and bringing it to Gamers.

Group Program Coming Soon!

I know teams are winning world championships with less than ideal training and rehab, but I want to see players have career lengths similar to European soccer players resulting in gaming dynasty’s.


If your someone who is struggling to feel better despite having already tried going to the Doctor, PTs, Chiro’s, then consider giving me a call or email because more than likely you haven’t done anything similar to what I will put you through.

My Email: cameron@ptherapyinstitute.com

From Ultra-Marathoner to Body Builder Podcast

In this episode I chat with Matt Flynn personal trainer and body builder coach. Matt is relentless with increasing his scientific knowledge base about improving the human physique in a healthy and sustainable way.  He is also super easy to talk to and relates with all of his clients by meeting them where they are at in their health and fitness journey. 

Matt gives tons of great tips on EASY changes you can make right NOW to start seeing changes in your body.