Introduction
Back pain is a widespread disease. About 70 percent of the population experiences at least one painful episode in their lives. However, the cause is only rarely due to an orthopedic illness.
Often muscle tensions or an incorrect load on the spine are to blame for the back pain. The most effective remedy for this type of back pain is a well-trained back musculature. The build-up training can be done at home without equipment, but also in a gym or at physiotherapy.
Back training should focus on stabilization and less on strength. This means that you should train with more repetitions and less weight. However, weights and equipment are not necessarily needed to build up the back muscles.
So simple exercises can also be done at home. Alternatively, the back muscles can be built up with different sports. A good example would be back swimming. Here the musculature is strengthened in a particularly gentle way.
Which muscle groups are there?
For effective training to build up the back muscles, at least a superficial knowledge of the anatomy of the back is important. Basically, there are two major types of muscles in the back, namely muscles that we can actively move and muscles that we use unconsciously. The second group is called autochthonous muscles.
It is located deep in the back in close proximity to the spine. The autochthonous muscles are particularly important for upright walking and a straight posture of the upper body. Depending on the seat, function, size and appearance, the individual autochthonous muscles still have proper names, but these are irrelevant to the layperson.
Since the deep back muscles are especially important for the posture, they are trained with little weight but many repetitions. Likewise, endurance sports with back involvement like hiking and swimming strengthen the autochthonous back muscles. Especially in case of back pain it is important to train these posture muscles to give the back additional stability.
Often, however, no attention is paid to training the deep back muscles because they cannot be seen from the outside. Therefore, no visible results are achieved, which quickly demotes the user. Besides the deep back muscles there are of course also superficial ones.
These are generally more familiar, since they are easily visible from the outside. The superficial back muscles can be contracted at will and are responsible for the movement of the back, as well as the upper extremities and the head. The largest muscle in the human body in terms of surface area is the so-called Musculus latissimus dorsi.
It is often referred to as the “apron muscle” because it is responsible for all movements necessary to tie an apron on the back. Another large representative of the superficial back muscles is the musculus trapezius. This muscle sits superficially on the neck and shoulder region and is also responsible for movement at these joints.
Of course there are other muscles from the group of superficial back muscles, such as respiratory support muscles or muscles that move the shoulder blades. However, these are not particularly important for back training. When training the superficial back muscles, the opposite is more likely to be true than for the deep ones. In comparison with higher weights and fewer repetitions, this is where training should be done.
