Most people bend from their back. But your body is actually designed to bend from your hips. The key is to protect your spine by using your hips. Your hips are: Strong Stable Designed to take load When we lose the ability to hinge at the hips, the lower back takes over and that’s when problems start. What goes wrong Instead of hinging: We round through the lower back We lift using the spine We overload discs and joints Over time this can lead to: Back pain Disc irritation Red

I regularly see patients with persistent low back pain and disc irritation. A recurring theme in the spinal literature is the critical role of the multifidus muscles in protecting the lumbar discs. The multifidus are small, deep stabilising muscles that sit directly along the spine. Unlike the larger erector spinae, they don’t create big movements — they provide segmental stability, controlling subtle motion between individual vertebrae. When these muscles weaken or switch of

Many people don’t realise the shoulder and hip often get the same type of injury — just in different locations. In the shoulder, a key muscle called the supraspinatus helps lift your arm out to the side and keeps the joint stable. In the hip, the gluteus medius does a similar job — it lifts your leg out to the side and keeps your pelvis steady when walking. These muscles are both called abductors, and when they become weak or slow to activate, the tendon starts doing more wor