Lower back muscles & exercises, confused!

jswill100

Hello all,

new to forums here so forgive me if this is a bit of a rant that doesnt belong in this particular forum.

I had a few questions. I suppose first its best to give you my general condition. Im 5.11" male, am pretty slender and only weigh about 10 stone 4lbs. Recently I have been battling at the gym trying to work my body fat down low enough to get rid of my extremely prominant love handles, whilst doing some ab work and general lifting. Im at about 12-13% bf now down from about 15.5 recently so doing ok.

Anyway, im posting in the body building forum because the main question here is muscular. I am aware of my lower back being underdeveloped and it feels "weird" for lack of a better word, kind of really nobbly with shards of bone below skin. I feel no muscle there at all and I feel its adding to my general "flabbiness" back there, since between my love handles ive got a bit of a flabby lower back adding to it.

I am aware of some exercises to work the lower back, but I am not sure what muscles I am meant to be working. Whenever I look for diagrams to find out names, and hence target specific muscles, it almost looks like there arent actually any workable muscles there, lol. Such as this picture http://staff.tuhsd.k12.az.us/gfoster...d/muscles2.gif

Clearly this cant be right, so im hoping for some newbie advice about some exercises I can do to get some development there, tone it up and eradicate the general weird feeling of the area (have had alot of "eeew, whats up with this?" from girlies giving me back rubs feeling the strange nobbliness of the area, not cool!)
.
I have tried some hyperextensions but never really feel im getting much of a work out out of it even with like 3 sets of 20 or something. I should mention that because of some problems in my feet, untill I recently got special inserts I had awful posture and problems up my back and neck, specifically my lower back had pain, so I am eager to get a good work out without too much dangerous (for beginners with bad backs) lifting.

Sorry for the little essay!

Thanks alot
John

p.s. as an aside id be interested if anyone had an opinion about what level of body fat they think people with problem love handles can expect to lose them. difficult to answer I know but thought id check.

CMinOZ

Hi John

Not sure if your question is exactly related to "bodybuilding training" though I hope we can help. It seems to me that you have got into your head that you can reduce your love handles by exercising the muscles beneath them, this is definitley not the case and is much more of a diet issue. Can you post up some idea of your current diet?

With regard to your wanting to develop your lower back I would suggest a program that included deadlifts which will help strengthen you entire back, stomach and core (crunches and hyper-extensions are a waste of time). With your back being how it is I would suggest seeing a sports physician before doing any heavy weight training though (back tracking having read this part of your post).

IMHO though you will get rid of the lovehandles through diet (they are often the last bit of fat to go) and you can build up your back, with Doctors advice, slowly but surely. I doubt anyone will be able to give you a specific BF% at which you will not have love handles (unless some smart@rse says 4%) - though they will go in the end, keep at it.

CM

Nath

Hello mate, I agree with CM, u should maybe get some medical advise before doing anything, I would hate u to injure urself based on any advise u are given here. I think the area u are referring to is ur Spinae erector (sorry if spelt incorrectly) You can work this with deadlifts and hyperextensions, you could try adding weight to ur hyper extensions, that always give my back a hammering. The important thing to remember from my point of view is, 'YOU ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS YOUR BACK', this is why it puzzles me when I see folks in the gym only doing bench press and bicep curls, ur bench press isn't as useful in practicable situations like moving a sofa upstairs. As such it also the area u must take the most care with, form is super important as if ur back goes, ur pretty screwed. You should deffo be doing some core strengthening stuff, things like planks are good and u can do a number of variations. Squatingisn't a bad idea either but if ur a total newb, u need to be shown how to perform these exercises correctly.

I'm not sure what the 'nobbly' bits are that u refer to, is it just ur spine??

cellaratt

Hello John welcome to the Board...With that said I'm a little puzzled why at 5'11 and 144 lbs, if I did my math correctly are you worried about weight issues. I mean come on. I'm just as guilty at 5'6 and 140 lbs squeezing my love handles and exclaiming " I'm fat " but everyone around me thinks I'm on drugs or something. If you've fully examined your body and still feel this way, maybe it's in your head. Hope you stick around I'm sure we all will come to a conclusion and get this straightened out for. Cheers

crazycal1

its perfectly possibly to be skinny but still have fatty areas.

deadlifts will help build muscle on your lower back(erectus spinae)and will also add some shape to your sides as well.
i`ve seen lots of peeps with this problem and its not just a case of fat loss as there seemingly no muscle underneath.
one of the dudes i train had this very problem and there was noticable improvements within 3 months and he wasnt dieting!
just lean bulking and taking his trap bar deads seriously.

einsteins mind was the key to all things...to understand more than to know.

www.extremenutrition.co.uk