Latest / Scoliosis with Dr. Chris Gubbels / If Your Body Does THIS After Training, Your Back Is In Trouble! — DON’T Ignore It

Transcript

If Your Body Does THIS After Training, Your Back Is In Trouble! — DON’T Ignore It · Scoliosis with Dr. Chris Gubbels

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's something I want you to watch near the end of your workout, not at the beginning, because you can look completely fine when you're fresh, feel like you're training well, and still have a problem start showing up once your body gets tired.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep training through it, you could be putting hundreds of reps into a pattern that's already making your body even more uneven.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Dr.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Goobles, back and spine specialist here in Denver, Colorado.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the scary part is you could feel like you're getting stronger while the actual underlying problem is getting harder to undo.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So what exactly should you be looking for?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Watch which way you keep breaking down.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets a little sloppier when they get tired.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that alone isn't what I'm talking about.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: What I am talking about is somebody who starts off looking pretty symmetrical.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But as they fatigue, the same shoulder starts dropping, the same hip shifts to the side, or they keep twisting toward the same side.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then they rest and recover and start the next set looking good again.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: But once they get tired, there it is again.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: The same side in the same direction.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I am much less interested in whether you got all tender reps in.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know why your body keeps finding the exact same escape wrap.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because your body is very good at finding the easiest way possible to finish a movement.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if one side of your spine or your pelvis or your trunk is already working different from the other, getting tired can make it really hard to hide.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because researchers have actually put people with scoliosis through fatigue testing to see what actually happens.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You see, they fatigue the back muscles on purpose.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: In a study done in 2023, researchers compared adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis to people without scoliosis, and they deliberately fatigued the muscles running along the thoracic spine or the midspine.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then they watched what happened to the muscle activity in spinal movement as those muscles got tired.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what we know from this and other scoliosis research is that the muscles along the two sides of the spine may already be working differently.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now we had fatigue to the unarmed pattern.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: As fatigue sets in, the way the spine moves and is controlled can start to change.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that gives us a really interesting possibility in the gym.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you're fresh, you may be strong enough to hide those imbalances.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: But once you get tired, that imbalance can become much easier to start to see.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's when that same shoulder starts dropping, the same hip shifts over, you keep twisting toward the same side.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So fatigue may not be causing the problem, but it may be revealing a pattern that was already there.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I would actually pay more attention to the end of your workout than the beginning.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You see, those last five reps may look more like the real you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you're fresh, you have options.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have more strength available, you can concentrate harder, you can consciously hold your position.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you may be able to make a squat, a deadlift, a row, a press, or even something as simple as a plank look pretty good.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then fatigue starts to take those options away.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now your body falls back on whatever strategy or pattern it knows best.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one hip always slides out.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you rotate as you stand up.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one shoulder starts sitting lower, or you always shift your weight to the same leg.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The exercise can change, but the direction doesn't.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the part I don't want you ignoring.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because if your body keeps escaping the same way once it gets tired, what happens when you keep adding more weight and more repetitions to that bad pattern?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can get stronger at the wrong thing.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where normal gym logic can get you into trouble.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your form starts breaking down, so the answer is strengthen your core, strengthen your glutes, strengthen your back.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm absolutely pro-strength, but stronger is not automatically more symmetrical.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep doing hundreds or thousands of repetitions while shifting, rotating, or collapsing the same way, you can become very strong at using that compensation.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is very different or even the opposite from correcting it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we have some evidence for that idea from scoliosis rehabilitation research.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: In both adolescents and adults with scoliosis, programs built around active self-correction, teaching people how to find and maintain a better spinal position while they move, have beaten more general exercise approaches on outcomes like disability and pain and quality of life, and in younger patients, even improve spinal deformity itself.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You see, there's a reason scoliospecific exercises doesn't simply say, here are some back exercises.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Go get stronger.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: The position you strengthen in matters.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The movement you repeat matters.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So before I'd add another 20 pounds to the bar, I would want to know whether I'm actually reinforcing the movement I actually want to.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's another mistake I see people make here.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to stretch the crookedness out of yourself.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Someone notices one side feels tighter, so they stretch it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then they stretch out some more.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they hang from something, twist hard to one side, foam roll in that tight spot, keep trying to open up whatever side feels compressed.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that feels good for 10 minutes, but it doesn't automatically mean that side needs to be stretched harder.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You see, with scoliosis, muscles are living around a three-dimensional spinal position.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: One side may be lengthened, another side shortened.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Different muscles may be working at different levels.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: The body has often developed those patterns over a long period of time.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if all you know is this side feels tight, you don't actually know enough yet to decide what direction you should actually force your body into.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm much more interested in the pattern than the sensation by itself.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you shifting?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which direction do you rotate?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Does the same thing happen when you squat, when you hinge, when you press overhead?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, does it become more obvious as you fatigue?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you notice that you constantly shift, twist, or collapse towards one side when you exercise, especially if you already know you have scoliosis, or you start developing recurring one-sided back pain, that's exactly the kind of thing we evaluate at Scholar Care Denver.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can look at what your spine is doing, how your body is compensating around it, and whether you need more scoliospecific approaches instead of simply adding more strengthening or stretching exercises.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can book a free discovery call with our team using the link below.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's an important question here.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Does seeing one ugly rep necessarily mean you have scoliosis?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: One bad rep doesn't mean your spine is crooked.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: People compensate for all kinds of reasons.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: An old knee injure could change the way you squat.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: An ankle that doesn't move well can push your body somewhere else.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hip problems, pain, strength differences, technique, there are plenty of different possibilities.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I would never diagnose scoliosis because someone's hip moved during a deadlift.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: What gets my attention is the repeatability of it.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You rest and it cleans up.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: You fatigue and the same thing comes back.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then you try a different exercise and the same side starts doing it over again.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you also notice one shoulder is higher, one side of your waist looks different than the other, your ribs are more prominent on one side, or you already know you have a spinal curve, then scoliosis moves higher on the list.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: The mistake would be just assuming my body gets weird when I'm tired.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, but if it gets weird the same way every time, I'd want to know why.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, what would I change before your next workout?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: First, I would not stop exercising.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I would definitely not tell you that scoliosis means you should be afraid of lifting weights.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I would do something much simpler first.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you're fresh, film a few reps from the front and the back.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then film the same movements later in the workout when you're starting to get fatigued.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just ask whether your form looks worse.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Look for direction.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Does one shoulder suddenly dip?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Does your pelvis shoot towards the side?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you rotate as you come up?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Does one leg start doing noticeably more work than the other leg?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you see a repeatable pattern, the answer is not necessarily to stop training.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I would stop blindly adding more resistance until I understood what I actually was strengthening.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you identify the compensation, now you can actually work on changing the movement instead of just rehearsing it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings me back to the research.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the goal is not just more muscle.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the major ideas behind scolio-specific rehabilitation is to actively correct your position and then maintain control while you move.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the scolia balance approach specifically incorporates active self-correction into functional exercise rather than treating strength as the only goal.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: In randomized research in adults with idiopathic scoliosis, found that a program incorporating active self-correction and task-oriented exercise produce better disability outcomes than general physical therapy in that study group.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is when they taught the patients to put their body in a three-dimensional correct position and then gave them specific exercises that strengthen weaker areas or that mimic things they do in everyday life, they did better than people that got general physical therapy exercises.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that doesn't mean everybody necessarily needs scoliosis-specific therapy.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: What it means is how you train a crooked or compensating body is different than how you train a completely symmetrical body.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're already drifting in one direction and fatigue makes that drift even bigger, I don't want your workout to simply make you powerful enough to repeat it harder.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want you stronger with better control.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So don't judge your workout by your first rep.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can look great when you're fresh.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can probably lift more weights than you could six months ago.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a stronger core, stronger legs, and a stronger back.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you can still have an asymmetry that becomes more obvious every time those muscles fatigue.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So look at what's happening near the end.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If your form simply gets generally sloppy, you may just be fatigued.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if your body keeps shifting, twisting, or collapsing in that same direction, especially across different exercises, don't just keep adding more weight and assume getting stronger is going to take care of it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out why.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to spend the next year getting stronger at the exact compensation you eventually have to undo.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to take a look at whether scoliosis or spinal imbalances may be contributing to what you're seeing, you can book a free discovery call that's at Scholar Care Denver by clicking on the link below.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Mike can reach out to you instead of time for me to talk to you one on one about your scoliosis.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go over what's going on, what it means, and what treatments may be available to you.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if one side of your back is already hurting more than the other, watch my video on the mistake people make when they keep treating that painful side.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you there.