Working Around Your Back Pain. . . The Trap Bar RDL

Those who suffer from low back pain cause sometimes be left no other option than to get a little creative to manage or work around movement patterns that aggravate the low back. One exercise that I recently started toying around with and thought I’d share is the Trap Bar RDL. The RDL is frequently used because of its ability to build strong glutes and hammies but performing this exercise with the traditional barbell places the load out in front of your body which creates a moment arm between your pelvis and the barbell that’s just long enough to cause pain and discomfort for some. The magic of the Trap Bar RDL lies in the fact that the load lies directly over you base of support (your feet) which takes some strain off of the lumbar spine. The set up and execution for the trap bar version of this movement will be the same as that of the traditional RDL. Whether you have low back pain or not the Trap Bar RDL is a wonderful tool to insert into you training and programming arsenal.