Exercise is important if you want to have energy and compete in this world. I enjoy boxing and grappling along with body weight workouts. Nothing brings you from a world class elite workout to sucking your thumb like a 5 year old more than throwing your back out. I do this once a year and my chiropractor recommended I read Foundation.
Why is this important to me?
Everybody I know has thrown their back out regardless if they are world class athletes or 100 pounds overweight. Weak backs plague most people. When I was younger, I always had back and neck pain. My neck would cause headaches and the doctor said it was a degenerative disk. What’s interesting is that I eliminated the neck pain with a back bridge exercise that was introduced to me in wrestling and reinforced in Matt Fury’s Combat Conditioning routine.
Improper motion and movement happening from the lower back instead of the hips and legs is the root cause of lower back problems. Foundation addresses these issues and discusses ways to eliminate them.
Foundation is an excellent book that gets to the root cause of back pain. The testimonials are from professional athletes as well as patients that have had back surgery. Let’s discuss the what, why and how to eliminate back pain.
1. What is the cause? Since back pain happens to anybody including 19 year old professional athletes or 70 year old grandmas, it makes sense to study it. Back pain revolves around improper motion. Eric and Peter have developed Foundation training to shift the focus from the abs and the front of the body to the back and posterior chain. The reason there is so much back, hip and knee pain is because we load our bodies incorrectly.
2. Why is this important? The answer to this is obvious but it seems that everybody has a different answer on how to fix it. If you go to a medical doctor then they will tell you to ice it and take medicine. A chiropractor will adjust you which is effective most of the time if they are good and a message therapist will work the muscles to loosen you up. All of these methods eliminate the symptoms but do not cure the root cause of the problem. If you do not change your movement patterns, the injuries will progress and low-grade inflammation will persist.
3. How does it work? Foundation training is a set of exercises that builds the back and posterior chain. I am very excited by this because my hips, legs and lower back are extremely tight. When warm, I can almost do the splits but my hips are locked like they are fused together. For every exercise that you do for the front of your body, you should do four for the back. This is real because evaluating this program for me has shown that I am over built in the front and under-built in the back. Foundation trains you to use your most powerful muscles properly, creating flexibility throughout the most important areas of your body.
Foundation is a great book that I highly recommend you pick up. I have been doing the exercises for a week now and I already feel the difference. My back is getting better and stronger. One thing that is highlighted in the book is using a Styrofoam roller to loosen up your legs and hips. I must admit that I was not hot on spending $40 bucks for a piece of Styrofoam but this has helped beyond my belief. Here is the analogy – if you have a rubber band then it will stretch to its limit, if you tie knots in the rubber band and try to stretch then the elasticity is perhaps only 20% effective. I can tell you that when you first start with the roller, it hurts like hell but the progression is very quick. To get an idea of how good these exercises are, YouTube “Foundation” and do one of the 12 minute videos that Eric and Pete give away for free. You will see results.
I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is eliminate your back pain. Foundation will become my pre-workout of choice moving forward because I know it works. I threw my back out and it is now better and stronger because of these routines.
Book Summary: Foundation - Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain - By Dr Eric Goodman and Peter Park
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