Core muscles and low back pain (LBP)

A 5-minute article that will help relieve low back pain and explain why it's worth training your core muscles.

Compared to other muscle groups, most of us still train the core one-sidedly — just for a six-pack.

Let's figure out the other benefits in this 5-minute article.

This article is aimed at coaches and thinking athletes. It reveals my experience dealing with low back pain (LBP), and is based on the NASM Essentials of Sports Performance Training and personal experience.

My weak spot has been my lower back since age 14 — hurting with varying degrees of severity. I had a routine set of exercises that kept the problem under control for more than 20 years. But last autumn, during lockdown after an unexpected break in my sports career, there was a serious exacerbation. The pain was acute. I decided to seek support.

Surgery vs. Rehabilitation

First, I went to a public hospital doctor. It was a 5-minute meeting. 3 questions. X-rays. Then the word "operation" was clearly pronounced. I realized I had made a mistake going there.

According to Canadian neurosurgeon Hamilton Hall, only 2% of spinal surgeries result in a successful or desired outcome for the patient.

Second, I went to an osteopath. The consultation felt like shamanism — I lay on the guru's hand for 40 minutes. Got terribly cold. Left. The pain remained.

Third, I went to S. Bubnovsky's rehabilitation center. His books' main message was that movement is life. That was closer to my views.

The reception at the center began with motor tests. The doctor explained: pain is often caused by muscle imbalance. For example: the muscles on the right are stronger and shorter than on the left. These distortions appear from our lifestyle. Pain is just a signal of imbalance in the system. The task isn't just to remove the pain — it's to find and fix the cause.

The tests spotted weakness in my core muscles, especially the glutes. I couldn't lift my hips off the floor while lying on my stomach. The recommendation: strengthen the core and glutes, and everything would be fine.

I went to work on it. But after 2 weeks I found almost no progress. I was training hard, but the muscles showed no delayed soreness — no sign they were responding.

Athlete vs. Mother-in-Law

In a conversation with a friend — also an athlete — I heard: "Oleksiy, there's something strange. You've been training your whole life. You look fit now. But my mother-in-law can lift her hips off the floor lying on her stomach, and you can't. It's most likely that your 'muscles don't hear you.'"

Hmmm.

Was the muscle weakness causing the pain, or was the pain causing the muscle weakness?

I kept digging and found research in the NASM textbook:

Weakening of the core muscles leads to lower back pain — and lower back pain, in turn, causes a deterioration in the nerve signal transmission to the abdominal muscles, back extensors, and glutes. A merciless trap.

People with low back pain also experience up to 26% loss of strength in the glutes and 36% in the external hip rotators — which then increases the risk of knee and ankle injuries.

Based on my experience, tests, and research, here are the 3 stages a person goes through when they neglect core training:

Stage 1: Freebie

Less training, more sitting. Day after day, losing an invisible battle with laziness. A passive lifestyle works silently, killing working muscle fibers one by one.

Symptoms: You feel generally okay, but muscle mass quietly decreases — mostly in the core. Your body looks more ripped but less toned. Energy disappears.

Solution: Get back to an active lifestyle immediately. Add movement to your daily routine, even a little, and gradually increase load when you're feeling strong.

Stage 2: Borderline

You sense something important is missing. You promise yourself to start exercising. But after spending hours at a computer and turning away from it at night, you're completely exhausted — and nothing happens.

Symptoms: Mild pain in the lower back. Slight pain in the glute when walking. The pain floats — stiffness in the morning, slightly better in the afternoon, back again in the evening. Sleep is still okay.

Solution: Time to wake up and start training. Without pain relievers, through discomfort. If you skip this stage, you reach Stage 3.

Stage 3: The Bottom

A sharp, penetrating pain catches you like a trap. You're no longer standing upright — you move on all fours. You can't find a comfortable position to sleep. When you do fall asleep, you wake up in pain.

The cruel irony: you need to restore muscle tone to get out of this hole, but training hurts too much to even start.

The pain in the lower back triggers a deterioration in nerve signal transmission to the core muscles, back extensors, and glutes. Your muscles "stop hearing you."

Solution: Seek outside help. A sports doctor, a program, a coach — someone who will give you confidence and help you push through the inner voice that says "don't move, rest, just lie here one more day."

These studies demonstrate the importance of core training in reducing the chances of low back pain and many other injuries. One of the most widespread sports injuries is an ACL tear in the knee. Core training and landing technique improvement are excellent preventive measures against ACL tears too.

In general, athletes with knee, ankle, hamstring, and IT band injuries, as well as low back pain, are less likely to re-injure after an active rehabilitation program focused on improving LPHC core strength and stabilization.

I recovered, apologized to my body, and returned to the gymnastics hall. A great lesson. The value of core training sparkled with entirely new colors.

This is the second article on core muscles. The first can be read here.

If you want to build that daily foundation — mobility, core activation, and back health in one structured program — the Back Mobility Challenge is the right next step.

FAQ

Can back pain actually weaken core muscles even further?

Yes — this is one of the most important and underappreciated facts about low back pain. Pain in the lower back deteriorates nerve signal transmission to the abdominal muscles, back extensors, and glutes. The muscles literally stop responding normally, which makes recovery harder without targeted intervention.

Why didn't the muscles respond to training even when working hard?

Because pain had already impaired the nerve connections to those muscles. Effort doesn't reach them in the same way. This is the trap described in the article: pain weakens the muscles, weak muscles worsen the pain, and the cycle continues until something breaks it.

What does "Stage 2: Borderline" look like in practice?

Floating pain in the lower back, mild discomfort in the glute when walking, morning stiffness, slightly better through the day, worse again in the evening. At this stage, getting active with targeted training can prevent the situation from reaching Stage 3.

Is surgery ever the right choice for lower back pain?

In most cases, no. According to the research mentioned, only 2% of spinal surgeries result in a desired outcome for the patient. The modern consensus in sports medicine increasingly supports movement-based rehabilitation over surgical intervention for the vast majority of back pain cases.

Keep Reading

• Low Back Pain: What to Do? — practical steps to manage pain and recover without surgery
• The Back Mobility Vitamin — simple daily mobility exercises that keep the pain away
• Amazing Back Mobility Exercise for Desk Workers — a practical exercise to add to your routine today
• Why Your Body Compensates — And How to Fix It — what happens when one area hurts and everything else shifts
• Why You Should NOT Do Rehabilitation Alone — when to stop guessing and get professional help
• Global Research Statistics on the Causes of Back Pain — the data behind why backs break down worldwide