01/16/2026
It’s an oversimplification to say that you can prevent back surgery just by doing some side-plank clamshells, but not by much. I see a lot of people who’ve had surgery to correct things like herniated discs, rotator cuff tears, carpal tunnel…etc to varying degrees of success. What most of them have in common is that they were preventable if the individual was willing to learn and utilize proper movement. Anytime mobility becomes restricted in a particular joint, it puts extra work on the adjacent joints. So if your hips don’t move well, you’ll hurt your knees or worse your low back. Aside from traumas like car accidents or falling off a bridge, these injuries are all rehab-able. Surgery is also a major trauma to your body to recover from in more ways than just throwing down some scar tissue to patch the hole. It’s taxing on your nervous system, your immune system, circulation… and more often than not, in my experience, the surgery doesn’t fully resolve the issue (because the issue is a movement deficiency) and there is some permanent loss of function when it comes to fusing vertebrae, or stapling down an infraspinatus, or snipping a retinaculum. I guess if you’re really that opposed to a little exercise then surgery will be an inevitability for you, but it doesn’t take as much effort as you might think to get back on track. I’m here to help!
