Jefferson curl and spine health and longevity questions

A possible herniated lumbar disc that I’ve struggled with for many years has prompted a few spine questions with regard to training:

  1. So many people seem to be advocating Stuart McGills advice and takeaways on spine health both in terms of athletics and for long term health.

Many of these takeaways seem to be that high performance in your youth essentially guarantees a damage unhealthy spine in your old age?

Is this true and for that reason should I expect potential long term issues for my long term health and long term strength if I push hard in training or try to reach high strength levels?

  1. With both high performance AND longevity in mind, I have considered the potential of the Jefferson curl to potentially provide some therapeutic benefits for my spine. What are your opinions and knowledge on this and would you recommend against it? (As McGill generally does) or would you say that loaded spinal flexion is a good thing or neutral?

  2. Some have claimed (like Dr. Aaron Horchig; Squat University) that the spine and discs do not adapt to loading stress like other joints do and spine health for performance comes down to not wearing out what you have over your life - and that weight training will not repair or strengthen your spine and spinal discs ever. Is this also true? (Ie should I assume that the spine can get stronger and healthy with weight training the way my elbows knees etc can?)

Hi there,

Have you checked out any of our existing content on back pain, spinal flexion, etc.? We have quite a lot of existing discussion on these topics on the podcast, website, and YouTube channel that would be helpful here.

  1. We would not agree with this.

  2. We view the Jefferson curl as just another movement, and do not universally recommend for or against it. Exercise selection should be individualized to a person’s abilities, tolerance, and goals. If loaded and processed appropriately, it may indeed be helpful to you to build capacity and tolerance for spinal flexion in this way.

  3. This is absolutely, 100% false. It has zero prior plausibility (literally every living tissue has the ability to adapt, and there is nothing special about the bone, collagen, or other structural components of the spine that preclude this), and additionally spinal adaptation has been shown in a number of studies across a variety of exercise modalities. Another thing to consider: why does vertebral osteoporosis happen? If the spine does not respond to the presence or absence of mechanical loading in terms of adaptation, we would expect spine bone mineral density to remain static across the lifespan. Instead, just like everywhere else – a lack of mechanical loading increases the risk of losing bone density and osteoporosis, which itself represents an ​​adaptation to a lack of stress.

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Ok this sounds like good news, but I suppose this conflicts with what I see in person with older men who formerly or perhaps still currently lift - but cannot anymore to the same capacity due to joint/spine degeneration.

ive seem some of your spinal discussions before but this was a question I had that ive struggle to shake off and fully believe in.

Yeah, this is a common sentiment.

You’re operating off an assumption – that they “cannot anymore to the same capacity due to joint/spine degeneration” – that we would not necessarily agree with.

Ok last thing:

I assume you guys disagree due to your model of pain with mcgills claim that non specific back pain doesn’t exist?

And that if there is a chronic issue it might always be fixable / not a specific disc or vertebrae etc?

The impetus is on him to support his claim, which he and others have not been able to do sufficiently based on existing evidence.

Non-specific doesn’t mean it won’t resolve, so I’m not really sure what this last piece means.