I don’t meet many people who are preemptively concerned about hurting their back… Most individuals don’t think about the possibility of injuring themselves unless they’ve already done so in the past.
I see people at the gym doing squats and deadlifts so poorly that it’s not a matter of IF they’ll injure their back and knees, but WHEN.
Today, I’d like to show you my favorite injury-prevention exercise. It can be done at home, work, the gym, and even outside, as long as you have some type of resistance band.
It’s called the Pallof Press, and it trains your core muscles in a deceptively simple way. If preventing injury is important to you, anti-rotation training is essential. That’s because core muscles are designed to control and/or prevent irregular spinal movements.
An inability to maintain a rigid and stable spine will decrease power output, leaking energy into other joints like knees, hips, and shoulders… This added stress/strain creates injury, and will wear down your spine in the process.
Watch this instructional video on how to perform the movement:
This of course is the gym version of the Pallof Press with a cable machine. But you can easily duplicate the same exercise with standard resistance bands. I recommend that men start with the black resistance band, and ladies start with the red.