Can I show you something that will change how you see their back pain?
Think of your body like a team. When everyone shows up - hips, glutes, core - the work gets split evenly and your lower back barely has to do anything. But the moment one person on that team stops doing their job, someone else has to pick up the slack. And that someone is almost always your lower back.
So it ends up doing the work of three people, every single rep, every single step, every time you bend down to pick something up off the floor.
Which is exactly why treating the lower back directly only ever buys you a few weeks of relief. You're giving the overworked person a break, but the person who stopped showing up is still not showing up.
So nothing actually changed.
This is also why I never ask to see anyone's scans. They confirm the lower back is under stress. They tell me nothing about what's causing it.
If you're about to start the back pain protocol — or you've already started and something feels off — check out Wrong Reps in the classroom or click here. It's the thing you read before day one so you don't spend 30 days missing the point. It walks you through exactly which part of your team is going missing and what to do about it first.
And if you just want to talk it through - drop a comment below. I read all of them.