Protocols to Strengthen & Pain Proof Your Back

**Andrew D. Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are discussing how to build a strong pain-free back. Having a strong pain-free back has numerous advantages, not the least of which is you're not in pain, as well as the fact that you can carry out your daily activities, any exercise or sports you might play, interactions with family members, like picking up a kid, leaning down to get things out of a cupboard, or reaching up to get things out of a cabinet without any pain. And back pain is one of those things that even if minor, and certainly if severe, severely impedes our ability to do most everything, even to just sit still or lay still. And one of the things about pain, in particular back and neck pain, is that it also has an effect on our emotional self. It makes us more irritable. It makes any activity, even the most mundane activities, that much more distressing to carry out. So during today's discussion, we will talk about how to ameliorate pain. However, pain as a general topic was already covered on this podcast with an expert guest, Dr. Sean Mackey, who's a medical doctor at Stanford. He's actually the director of our pain clinic. And on that episode, which we provide a link to in the show note captions, he talks about the various ways to address pain, everything from pain medication to epidurals to electrical stimulation, and importantly, the biopsychosocial model of pain, whereby our thoughts and our perceptions about pain actually influence the severity and the duration of that pain. So if you're interested in pain and the treatment of pain per se, I highly recommend that episode. Today, we will certainly talk about ways to deal with back pain, ways to reduce it, and perhaps even eliminate it altogether. But we are also going to talk a lot about how to painproof your back and how to build a really strong back, not just for pulling things, because the back muscles are involved in pulling things, but also just for generating a really strong, stable core, strong spinal erectors, making sure that your pelvis and your spine are interacting correctly, that your shoulders, neck and spine and pelvis, and even your lower limbs and feet are working together in the proper manner to make sure that you have the strongest and most pain-free back possible. So what I'm going to do is first, I'm going to describe a bit of back anatomy and physiology. I'm going to talk about the neuromuscular components as well as the spinal and disc components. I promise, even if you don't have a background in biology, I'm going to make this all very accessible to any and all of you. And then I'm going to go into the 10 or 12 specific things, in particular, six things that take very little time that require no equipment, no purchase of anything whatsoever, and involve a very minimal time investment that will allow you to build a really strong pain-free back. What's covered are protocols from three of the world's foremost experts in back pain, but also back strengthening and building resilience into the back. So they include a medical doctor, expert in back strengthening and rehabilitation, a Ph.D. researcher who has spent decades researching the spine and ways to strengthen the core and spine, and a world-class Ph.D. physical therapist who is expert, not just in the spine, but in fact, in the movement, rehabilitation, and strengthening of the entire body. They are the MD., Dr. Sean Miller, the Ph.D., Dr. Stuart McGill, and also the Ph.D., Dr. Kelly Starratt. I provide links to them and resources that they provide in the show note captions. And indeed, I plan to host all three of them separately on the Huberman Lab podcast as expert guests in the not too distant future. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is AeroPress. AeroPress is like a French press, but a French press that always brews the perfect cup of coffee, meaning no bitterness and excellent taste. AeroPress achieves this because it uses a very short contact time between the hot water and the coffee. And that short contact time also means that you can brew an excellent cup of coffee very quickly. The whole thing takes only about three minutes. I started using an AeroPress over 10 years ago, and I learned about it from a guy named Alan Adler, who's a former Stanford engineer, who's also an inventor. He developed things like the Aerobe Frisbee. In any event, I'm a big fan of Adler inventions. And when I heard he developed a coffee maker, the AeroPress, I tried it and I found that indeed it makes the best possible tasting cup of coffee. It's also extremely small and portable. So I started using it in the laboratory when I travel on the road and also at home. And I'm not alone in my love of the AeroPress coffee maker. With over 55,000 five-star reviews, AeroPress is the best reviewed coffee press in the world. If you'd like to try AeroPress, you can go to aeropress.com/huberman to get 20% off. AeroPress currently ships in the USA, Canada, and to over 60 other countries around the world. Again, that's aeropress.com/huberman.