Okay, so this video is designed to go with the Huberman Lab Podcast solo episode where I talk about how to strengthen and pain-proof your back. I'm going to show you the so-called McGill's Big Threes, so-called because they were developed by Dr. Stuart McGill, an expert in spine physiology. I'm also going to show you a psoas stretch, and I'm also going to show you a what sort of looks like a cobra pose in yoga.

It's a certain kind of up-dog push-up where it's not a real push-up, but that too can be used to both pain-proof and strengthen the back, especially if you're experiencing some bulging, that is some herniation of the discs. One thing to keep in mind is that every body, everybody, is different in the sense that some people can do these movements with a little more arch in their neck or a little more holding of the neck in neutral position than others can without pain and with stability.

So you'll see examples of these exercises multiple places online, and everyone does them slightly differently. What you're about to see are the core elements of the Big Three, the psoas stretch, and the up-dogs or cobra push-up for relieving some stress on impinged nerves as a consequence of bulging or herniation of the discs.

Again, everyone does these slightly differently. Work within the range that is challenging for you, but that doesn't cause or exacerbate any pain for you. All that said, the exercises I'm about to show you require minimal time investment, no equipment, can be done by most everyone pain-free, and have been shown to be very beneficial for strengthening and pain-proofing your back.

Okay, so the first exercise in McGill's Big Three is the curl-up. The curl-up is essentially where you lie down like so with, at first, legs extended. This is where you're going to start. You're going to take your hands and, with palms down, and you're going to put them in the small of your back, so in the arch of your back, and you actually want to maintain that arch in your back.

Probably want to make your spine nice and long. Put one knee up with the leg flat, the other leg is extended, and then you're going to, again, keep the spine long, meaning you're not going to move the chin towards the chest too much. You're just going to keep it in a neutral position as if you were looking straight forward, or in this case, straight up at the ceiling, and then you're essentially going to, you could keep the elbows down, or you can float the elbows, which is a little bit more difficult.

I'll float the elbows, and then you lift your upper torso just a bit, and of course, the head goes with it, but you're not going to lead with the head, you're going to lead with the chest. Okay, like so, and as you do that, I'm trying to talk while I'm doing this, you'll feel a nice hard contraction in the abdominals, okay?

You're going to hold for about 10 seconds, and as you do that, you're not going to want to talk like I am now. You're going to want to put the tongue on the roof of your mouth, breathe through your nose, and exhale, and then you're going to relax down to the floor again, set the head down.

You might want to rest somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds, depending on your particular needs, and then you're going to raise up your torso, leading with the chest, letting the head follow, holding for about 10 seconds. You can really get a nice hard contraction of the abdominals there, which is going to help to build stability.

The reason, as I describe in the episode, for doing these 10-second holds as opposed to a 30-second set or a minute-long set is that repeated 10-second holds help you to build the neural pathways that allow you to contract those muscles very hard, which is the goal here. So, after repeating that, say, three to five times per set, okay?

So, one set would be, say, three to five 10-second holds with 10 to 30, maybe 60 seconds between each hold. It'll be one set with the knee up. You could perform multiple sets with this knee up and then switch to the other side. I talk about this in the episode.

I recommend starting with just one set per side and then progressing to about three sets per side. You're going to switch to the other side in this case. So, here, again, it's a nice long spine, this leg extended, this foot planted with a bend in the knee. Use the tops of your hands, so palms down, to find the small of your back.

Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Float the elbows if you can. Otherwise, you can keep the elbows down if you're not able to do that, and then just lift the upper torso and hold for 10 seconds. And down. And then you would repeat several times or more for this side, and then you could go back to the other leg, or simply do all the sets for one leg extended, then all the sets for the other leg extended.

I talk about sets and reps, et cetera, in the episode on how to strengthen and pain-proof your back. This is a great exercise because it actually takes advantage of the ability to contract the abdominals much harder in this position and more efficiently than crunches done the conventional way. And I also talk about in the episode how crunches done the conventional way can often exacerbate disc herniation and bulging, whereas this should not.

Although, again, if you experience pain or exacerbation of pain from doing this, you should cease to do it. So that's the curl-up. Okay, so the next exercise in Stu McGill's Big Three is the side plank. And the side plank can be done through a number of different progressions, which many people find they have to start with the easiest one and work their way up to the more difficult forms of the side plank.

So the side plank, as the name suggests, is where you get on your side. The easiest way to start this, meaning to begin this exercise if you haven't done it before, is to do a kind of right angle bend in the arm that's in contact with the ground. You make a fist on that side.

The knees are bent, okay, and the feet are stacked. And then you're going to both lift the hips off the ground, but also push down hard with the arm and the fist that's in contact with the floor. That's important. And it essentially looks like this, okay. So the idea is to not let the hips sag like so, to try and generate as much of a hard contraction in the abdominal muscles and the muscles of the core that are on the side here, okay.

So that's the first progression you would hold for 10 seconds or so. I'm not counting exactly. Tongue on the roof of your mouth, and then let down, okay. Maybe rest 10, 30, maybe 60 seconds if you need to, and then repeat. Focusing hard on pushing the ground away. The next progression after doing this with the legs and feet stacked with the arm at 90 degrees would be to do it with the arm straight.

You can do this with a fist if you're really strong. I'm still working up to that. Or you can do it with hand planted like so. So I'd probably suggest starting with the foot here. You can really feel a strong contraction there. Then moving to it with feet stacked.

And this is really fatiguing me. You can see some quaking in that arm. Clearly I have some progression to work through. And relax. Okay, so that's the side plank. And of course you would do it on the other side as well, like so. Really emphasizing pushing the floor away.

And there are a bunch of variations on these as well. There's some rotational stuff you can do. Some people like to do arms ahead or the foot floating. Those are harder progressions. You can find all of these online very easily, as you can tell because I'm breathing hard now.

I've worked up to the point where I can do the feet stacked one for the sets, but I'm still working through the progressions of the side plank. Okay, the third exercise in McGill's Big Three is the bird dog. Love that name because I love birds and I love dogs.

And basically what you do is you're going to get down on all fours like so. You're going to at first plant your hands, plant your knees. Then what you're going to do is you're going to actively push the ground away with one hand. That's important. You're going to raise up the other one and into a fist.

That's important. I explain why in the episode on how to strengthen and pain-proof your back. And then you're going to extend the opposite leg to the one where the arm is extended. Okay, so opposite side. And I explain the logic behind this in the episode. Okay, some common mistakes are that people arch the back too much and raise this leg too much.

You don't need to do that. You just want to raise it up. Some people will point the toe, it's fine to point the toe or to just keep heel to the ceiling. You're going to actively reach with this fist out in front. Okay, and you're going to actively push down.

You'll really feel that contraction in the core. It takes some concentration to make sure that you're activating your core, tongue on the roof of your mouth, neck in a slightly arched position. Neutral is okay too, looking forward. And then if you want to make this a little bit tougher, you can do some circles or squares with the extended leg and hand in both directions.

If you want to make it even harder, you can gently, while maintaining contraction of the core, touch your hand to your knee and back out. Definitely don't just, you know, swing the hand in and touch your knee. Go back and move it nice and slow so you can feel the contraction in your core.

Go for at least a 10-second hold with the repeats as described in the episode before you start doing some of these kind of square movements and touches, etc. And then down. Okay, and then you need to repeat for the other side. So actively pressing down, that's a key feature here.

You know, fist out in front and reaching, tongue on the roof of your mouth, opposite leg extended. Don't go too high. You're not trying to get a steep arch in the lower back, just get that core contraction. Take some concentration and then hold for at least 10 seconds. Helps to exhale.

And if you want, you can do some of these movements. You can do the nice slow touching of the fist to the knee, keeping that contraction in the core. And out. Keeping contraction in the core. And out. Building spine and core and upper back stability. That's the bird dog.

Okay, so the next exercise is a psoas stretch. The psoas, as described in the episode, is a muscle that attaches the spine to the pelvis. Does some other things too. It's involved with the diaphragm, which of course is involved in your breathing. And guess what? Your diaphragm is also involved in your heart rate, regulating your heart rate by virtue of how much space there is in the thoracic cavity.

So a lot of interesting stuff about the psoas. You can read up, you can learn more about it in the episode. But stretching your psoas is wonderful. It both can provide some relief for tightness in the hips, challenges in breathing, especially after sitting, for relieving pressure on certain nerve roots.

And there are a bunch of other benefits as well. It's very easy to do. It more or less looks like a warrior two pose in yoga. And forgive me, I'm not a trained yogi. I've taken a few yoga classes in my day, however. And what you're essentially going to do is get into a lunge where the front knee is a little bit bent.

This is going to depend a little bit on your degree of flexibility. Again, every body is different. But what you're essentially going to do here is you're going to go into a lunge, which this, for me, I can start to feel a stretch on my hip here. And then you're going to raise the arm on the side for which the leg is behind you.

And you're going to put the palm of your hand to the ceiling. And then you're going to turn your pinky towards your head and really reach and then move into the lunge a little bit deeper. So now I'm getting a deeper stretch in the hip flexor. Really feeling it all the way from the hip flexor up through the psoas, through the arm, and you can really reach, reach, reach, reach, reach.

Exhale, again, tongue on the roof of your mouth. Eyes can be forward or eyes can be up. And relax. You would repeat that three or five times per side and call that one set. And then you would do it for the other side. So like so. Again, and by the way, the heel of my back foot is off the ground.

Some people prefer and/or can do it with their heel in contact. If of course I tighten my stance, I can do it with the heel in contact. I prefer to do it this way with my back heel up, front foot completely planted. And then it's lunge forward until I start to feel a stretch in the hip flexor here.

And arm goes up. My eyes are up, in my case, palm parallel to the floor, parallel to the ceiling, and then turning the pinky toward my head, exhaling through my nose, tongue on the roof of the mouth. Again, I can feel the stretch the whole way down and back to the toes.

We talk about some of the fascial, that is the fascia aspects of this, the neural aspects and the neuromuscular aspects in the episode on how to strengthen and pain-proof your back. You might do that for one to five sets, depending on how much time you have, how much work you're trying to put into strengthening and pain-proofing your back.

As you can see, you can do this in work clothes. These are not my workout clothes. These are my work clothes. And generally you can do it without working up a sweat. I've got a little bit of perspiration here because I'm putting a lot of effort into it and I'm talking at the same time, but you can essentially do these anywhere.

Now, this last exercise was one that was taught to me by a guy named Grant Elliott, who has a terrific Instagram channel called Rehab Fix. It's a back exercise designed to relieve pain when you're getting some bulging, that is herniation of the disc that's impinging on the nerves. For me, that was about an L3, L4 impingement.

It was so bad that I could barely walk. I was like doubled over like this. I could barely walk. I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe I needed surgery or I need pain meds. Some people, yes, do need surgery and or pain meds for lower back injuries and pain.

But in my case, what Grant Elliott instructed me to do, which helped immediately and resolve the whole thing within just a couple of days, was to do a sort of cobra pose pushup. So, what I do, so I'll get down on the floor like so. I put my hands more or less at clavicle level, a little bit behind, maybe in line with my chest.

My feet are together and pointed back. My elbows are back and then I push up off the ground. Again, tongue on the roof of the mouth. Sometimes I'll go up higher like so, but usually it's just to about here and then release and relax. And then I'll repeat doing about anywhere from three to five second holds.

I'll do that for maybe five to 10 repetitions. I'm going to do fewer now for sake of time. And then on the last repetition, I'll hold, trying to go long with the spine, for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, and then relax. And I'll do that several times throughout the day.

It helped tremendously and immediately to relieve my back pain, which was, again, excruciating, was also causing pain in the hip and down the leg. If you listen to the episode on how to strengthen and pain-proof your back, at least for the back pain that I had, where there was a disc impingement on a nerve root and the direction of the herniation of the disc was that away towards my back, it made perfect sense.

It does make perfect sense why that would help relieve it because it's essentially taking that disc and encouraging it to move back under those vertebrae, so to speak. I realize that's not the technical term. For other types of back pain, you might need to do a slightly different variation or avoid that variation.

For instance, if the impingement is in the front, that exercise would actually exacerbate it. However, what I was doing prior to that exercise, such as crunches, was actually making the disc herniation worse. So that exercise I just showed you was the way that I relieve my back pain and many others that I know have used it to relieve their back pain because it was caused by the same disc herniation pattern.

Okay, so that's the cobra push-up, sort of up-dog type cobra push-up. I don't have a better name for it. Maybe you can come up with a better name for it. Put that in the comment section below. I'll take a tally and we'll go with the top one from here.

Okay, so that's McGill's Big Three, meaning that's the curl-up, the side plank, and the bird dog. I also showed you this in a warrior two pose with the palm towards the ceiling, which is designed to stretch the psoas and involves some fascial stretching as well and some activation of the entire pathway from hand to hip and provides a really terrific stretch.

Obviously, you want to do those both sides. And this cobra push-up/up-dog thing that can, in many cases, provide relief for the nerve roots that are being impinged upon by a bulging or herniated disc. At least that's what it did for me. Hope you found those useful. Again, lots of variations on these.

You can find them on the internet. You can find them in Stu McGill's book and other resources. We provided links to the various people as well as the book resources and a few other videos that are going to be useful for you as you try to navigate back pain and strengthen your back and pain-proof your back.

And of course, please check out the full-length episode of the Huberman Lab podcast that I did all about how to strengthen and pain-proof your back. It gets into all the logic, the science, the details, and of course, protocols. And last but certainly not least, thank you for ignoring the color of the carpet and thank you for your interest in science.