Cillian O'Connor Strength and Conditioning

Back pain is not easy to diagnose as a single cause, and the idea that your glutes could be inactive is a myth, unless you have some kind of neurological issue.

The good news is that there are still lots of very simple general things you can do that will help, even if the back pain itself has no single clear cause.

Often the strategies that target the glutes can work, but for very general reasons: i.e you started doing some exercise that didn’t aggravate the area.

But you don’t need a full glute band routine and a whacky narrative about your glute activation levels to do that.

General strength and conditioning is usually perfectly fine, as long as the loads are reduced to what you can handle and built up slowly.

We’re making such great progress. Let’s change everything 🤝

It’s really frustrating when pain only pops up after you’ve trained.

But the mistake people make is assuming that means load management no longer applies.

The answer is not to change everything in your approach.

Your body gave you a signal, it was just delayed.

Record your pain and see how it is actually trending over time as you adjust the loading.

Going from a 6/10 to a 4/10 is progress. Don’t despair and change everything just because it’s going slower than you’d like.

There are times when I want clients to round their back, and there are times when I want them more flat or extended.

Good training expands your movement options so that you are in control of how you move and not stuck with just one strategy for picking stuff up off the floor.

The person who flexes for everything and the person who neurotically keeps their shoulders retracted and back flat on everything are actually just two sides of a fragile mover coin.

Look for nuance and you’ll find the truth.

The ‘nobody is thinking about you’ mindset is very liberating, but it is fragile.

There absolutely are people out there who don’t like you.

They think you’re cringe or just downright annoying.

You can do no right in their eyes.

We don’t need to lie to ourselves about this reality.

But as long as they are not the opinions of people you love or respect, why should you care?

Life is short, and you shouldn’t allow the opinions of eejits to stop you from doing what you want to do.

As a wise man once said: “I am cringe, but I am free”.

Half the battle of doing plyos/power work is just finding a space for it in your week that won’t eat up too much time.

My current gym has no astro area so I’ve found this to be a useful way of getting a solid dose of jumps in regularly so I can make myself more springy.

I recommend starting with two foot jumps. Always progress from static landings first before trying reactive. Then later you can progress to single leg jumps.

At the moment I just do 3-5 sets before my two runs. Serves as a good warm-up too.