17 Dec MOPs & MOEs Podcast: Why Strength Alone Doesn’t Protect Your Back
Article Rundown
- Being strong doesn’t automatically mean your back is protected
- Core endurance and stiffness matter more than brute force
- Muscling through poor positions always catches up over time
- Build the foundation first so strength becomes sustainable
Why Strength Alone Doesn’t Protect Your Back
One of the most common things people with back pain are told is, “You just need to get stronger.” As if adding more weight to the bar automatically fixes the problem. The reality is, plenty of people are brutally strong and still end up hurt. I know that because I was one of them. Strength in a lift doesn’t guarantee your trunk can stay locked in, coordinated, and protective when fatigue and load start stacking up.
That gap between strength and resilience is where most back injuries live. You can have all the horsepower in the world, but if the foundation can’t hold, something eventually gives.
What I Actually Lost After My Injury
When I got hurt, I didn’t just lose strength—I lost stability across my entire system. My body went into self-preservation mode, and that showed up as shaking, guarding, and an inability to stay controlled under loads that used to feel routine. It wasn’t just about spinal stability; it was about full-body coordination and trust in movement breaking down.
That forced me to start over, not as a world-class powerlifter, but as a beginner rebuilding the most basic qualities I had ignored for years. It was humbling, but it was necessary.
Why Traditional Core Work Wasn’t Enough
Before working with Stu McGill, my idea of core training looked like most powerlifters’: sit-ups, leg raises, cable crunches, and posterior-chain work that felt hard but didn’t actually reflect how the core functions during heavy squats and deadlifts. I never trained true strength endurance of the trunk, and once I was injured, that weakness was exposed immediately.
I see the same thing now with lifters, athletes, and even highly trained military personnel. They can move big weights and perform demanding tasks, but they can’t maintain trunk stiffness for even short durations without shaking. Being strong doesn’t automatically mean the core is prepared to protect the spine when it matters most.
Muscling Through Lifts Always Catches Up
I used to be the guy who could muscle through ugly positions and still finish the lift. You see it all the time—spines moving like slinkies in squats and deadlifts, multiple hinges showing up as fatigue sets in. It might work in the short term, but repeated spinal motion under heavy load is inefficient and eventually destructive.
Over time, that lack of control shows up as chronic pain or acute injury. If your back hurts from top to bottom, it’s usually because it’s been asked to move where it should have been braced, over and over again, under substantial load.
What Real Core Training Actually Is
Core training isn’t circus tricks or isolating muscles for aesthetics. Real core training is teaching the muscles of the trunk to work together across all planes—front, sides, and back—to build endurance and stiffness. The goal is to resist motion so force can be transferred efficiently through the body without leaking through the spine.
For powerlifters, that means staying locked in while the hips and shoulders do the moving. The stronger and more enduring that brace is, the easier it becomes to correct small deviations in a lift without sacrificing spinal position.
Why This Shift Matters for Longevity
The same principles that got me out of pain are the same ones I used to build my biggest squat—just applied in the right doses and at the right time. Powerlifting is ultimately a game of compression and shear tolerance, and the best way to increase that tolerance is by building proximal stiffness and allowing distal athleticism to do its job.
When training respects movement quality, endurance, and progression, strength becomes something you can keep long term. That applies whether you’re a powerlifter, a tactical athlete, or someone who just wants to train hard without wrecking their back.
Build the Foundation Before You Chase the Numbers
If there’s one takeaway from this conversation, it’s that strength should be built on a foundation that can support it. That means earning the right to load the bar by developing trunk endurance, control, and movement strategies that protect the spine under fatigue.
Get the foundation right, and strength becomes an asset instead of a liability. Ignore it, and no amount of brute force will save you in the long run.
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