Protocols to Strengthen & Pain Proof Your Back

High-Level Overview

In this solo episode, Andrew Huberman explains how to build a strong, stable back and how to reduce or even eliminate back pain, using only protocols that need no equipment, cost nothing and take little time. He draws on three experts he plans to host as guests: spine researcher Dr. Stuart McGill, physician Dr. Sean Wheeler and physical therapist Dr. Kelly Starrett. (Pain itself was covered in an earlier episode with Stanford pain specialist Dr. Sean Mackey.) He starts with an accessible tour of back anatomy (vertebrae, discs, spinal cord, nerve roots) so listeners can picture what each exercise is doing, then walks through about a dozen protocols, from McGill's "Big Three" to toe spreading and a psoas stretch.

The tone is practical and teacherly, with regular warnings that back pain needs a professional diagnosis and that surgery, epidurals and pain medication have their place. Huberman adds personal stories, most memorably how he fixed a debilitating L3-L4 disc bulge in two or three days with a simple extension exercise. The episode moves from anatomy to specific exercises to everyday habits.

The Discussion Explores:

• Back anatomy: vertebrae and discs as protective "donuts" around the spinal cord, and nerve roots that can be squeezed by bulging discs
• Thick-spined versus thin-spined body types (the oak versus the willow) and how that changes what your back needs
• McGill's Big Three: the curl-up, the side plank and the bird dog, with sets, reps and common mistakes
• The Oreo cookie analogy for disc herniation, plus relief tools like a supported bar hang and "cobra push-ups"
• Sciatica and referred pain as often coming from disc bulges pressing on nerves
• Stabilizers far from the spine: front-of-neck strength, foot and toe strength, belly breathing at rest, and staggered-stance training
• Medial glute activation for low back pain, a lumbar towel roll, and a McGill psoas stretch
• Paying attention to your own movement patterns as the final "protocol"

Deep Dive into Main Ideas

Back Anatomy: What You're Actually Protecting

Huberman starts with the structure of the spine: cervical (neck), thoracic, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal regions, made of alternating bony vertebrae and softer discs. The discs are durable but squishable, and they let the spine bend, twist and compress. Both vertebrae and discs have a hole through the middle like a donut, and the spinal cord runs through it. The spinal cord is central nervous system tissue, an extension of the brain (along with the neural retinas, which he calls the only parts of the brain outside the skull). Like the rest of the CNS, it essentially doesn't regenerate after injury, which is why it's encased in bone. Unlike the brain in the skull, though, the spinal cord moves a lot every time you lean, arch or twist.

Motor neurons in the front (ventral) part of the spinal cord send axons out to the muscles, and sensory information from skin, tendons and muscles comes in through the back (dorsal) side. That sensory feedback protects us, for example by making us drop a load that's about to tear a muscle off the bone. These nerve bundles, or roots, leave the spine between the vertebrae, and a big source of back, neck and pelvic pain is a bulging (herniated) disc pressing on them. So Huberman says two themes run through the whole episode: creating space so nerve roots are free of pressure, and building stability around the spine so the limbs can move without compressing those pathways.

He also explains why "stiffness" is a good word here. A strong back needs the ability to create rigidity in the core and spine in order to throw a ball, punch, dance or simply climb stairs without falling. He notes that all pain is ultimately neural and shaped by psychology, prediction, history and inflammation (the biopsychosocial model), but that structure and stability from the toes to the neck strongly affect how well the back works.

Get Assessed, and Know Your Spine Type

Following McGill, Huberman insists that anyone with significant back pain needs a proper assessment. Some pain comes from overusing one pattern, like a golfer who always swings the same way; some comes from injuries like ruptured discs that may need surgery. He can't diagnose anyone through a podcast, and persistent pain that doesn't respond to non-surgical approaches warrants a back specialist or surgeon.

What anyone can do is a rough self-assessment of spine thickness. People with thicker wrists, knees and ankles and a barrel-shaped torso (more mesomorphic) generally have thicker vertebrae and discs. They handle vertical loads well but twist and bend less easily. People with small wrists and joints (more ectomorphic, like many dancers and yoga teachers) have thinner spines that are more "bendy" but tolerate less compression. McGill compares them to a willow (bends a lot, collapses under heavy vertical load) versus an oak or redwood (carries huge loads, but snaps if bent too far). Thin-spined people should put more emphasis on building muscle around the spine for stability. Thick-spined people need that too, but may benefit more from mobility work so that reaching sideways five to seven degrees for a glass doesn't pinch a nerve. Most people fall in between. Huberman describes himself as mixed: long, ectomorphic arms but a short, thick torso.

The Curl-Up: A Spine-Friendly Replacement for Sit-Ups

The first of McGill's Big Three replaces the sit-up. Huberman explains that crunches squeeze the front of the vertebrae together and can push an already bulging disc further out onto a nerve, so they may be one of the worst things to do for back pain. A strong abdominal wall is still essential for spinal stability, so the curl-up trains it without flexing the spine.

Technique: lie on your back with one knee bent and the other leg straight, hands under the small of your back to keep its natural arch, head neutral, tongue on the roof of the mouth, and breathing through the nose. Lift the elbows slightly off the floor and raise the upper chest only about five to ten degrees, leading with the chest and not the chin. Contract the abs hard for eight to ten seconds, exhaling if it helps, then rest 10 to 30 seconds or up to a minute. Switch legs between sets. A suggested scheme is a descending pyramid: five 10-second holds in the first set, then four, three, two and one. Short, maximal contractions build the nerve-to-muscle pathways better than long endurance holds. Harder variations include raising the straight leg or lifting the elbows higher. The most common mistake is turning it into a sit-up by leading with the chin. Huberman says it can be done daily, but even once or twice a week helps, and if it doesn't aggravate your pain, it's building protective musculature.

The Side Plank: Build Up Through Progressions

Huberman admits "I don't know why I hate doing side planks," and says that's exactly why he's started doing them, citing Peter Attia's emphasis in Outlive on a strong spine and the ability to jump, land and catch yourself as you age. Start on your side with knees bent 30 to 40 degrees and feet stacked, support yourself on the forearm with the hand in a fist, and lift the hips so the body forms a straight plank, actively pushing the floor away. He explains why the fist helps: making a fist recruits neural pathways that produce firmer contractions elsewhere, and he points to strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline's example that clenching your other hand strengthens your handshake.

Once you can hold eight to ten seconds rigidly, progress to straight legs with the top foot placed in front of the bottom foot. An advanced version rolls the chest toward the floor and back to add a rotational element that approaches a front plank. The side plank loads mainly one side of the spine, so do both sides. Huberman does two or three sets of three 10-second holds per side and may move to a reverse pyramid. The key mistake to avoid is letting the hips sag, which is especially risky for anyone with a disc bulge.

The Bird Dog: One Long, Stable Line

The third exercise starts on all fours: extend one arm forward (hand in a fist) and the opposite leg back, keeping the torso parallel to the floor without tilting toward the supporting side. Don't raise the fist or heel too high. The goal is one long line from fist to foot, not a bowed arch in the lower back, with the planted hand and knee pushing the ground away. Huberman describes it as "nothing floppy no leaks." Use three to five eight- to ten-second holds per set, possibly as a descending pyramid, and train both sides by alternating or doing one side at a time. Harder variations include drawing boxes with the fist or foot, or bringing the elbow or fist back to touch the knee before extending again.

He stresses quality over volume. The fatigue from these exercises isn't like sprinting or heavy deadlifts, but once it prevents perfect form, stop, because the goal is to build a clean neuromuscular pattern you'll keep for life. He also reframes pain: "pain is always the consequence of a pathway being irritated or a pathway being activated," so training works on pathways, not just muscles. One or two sets of each Big Three exercise takes five to ten minutes and can be done once or twice a week, as a warm-up or at the end of a workout, even in street clothes. McGill himself warns that the Big Three are a great start, not the whole story. If any movement makes your pain worse, stop and see a professional.

The Oreo Analogy, Bar Hangs and Cobra Push-Ups

Huberman compares a spinal segment to an Oreo: the cookies are vertebrae and the cream is the disc. Squeeze evenly and the cream spreads out all around; squeeze one side and it pushes out the other; crush it and the cream bursts through, which is like a ruptured disc. Many back problems come from the cream bulging onto a nerve bundle. His first relief tool is a supported hang: hold an overhead bar with your toes or heels still touching the floor (not a full dead hang, which can aggravate pain) for 10 to 30 seconds without twisting, then walk around and repeat two or three times. The same logic is behind inversion tables. He used to use one, but warns that inverting raises pressure inside the head and eyes, so anyone with or prone to glaucoma should avoid it.

His second tool comes from personal experience. Doing weighted bench dips at a gym in Seattle, he felt something "go" in his back and soon had severe pain on his right side, in the hip socket and down the leg, similar to classic sciatica. He was bent over walking to the Space Needle. He tried crunches, which made things much worse. A physical therapist diagnosed a posterior disc bulge around L3-L4, told him to stop crunching, and prescribed what Huberman calls cobra push-ups: lie face down with legs straight, toes pointed and hips on the floor, press the upper body up into something like yoga's upward dog with the head neutral for eight to ten reps, then hold the last one until you start to shake. He felt some relief from the first set and was almost pain-free within two or three days, with no medication. He admits there's no control experiment and that a lot of back pain resolves by itself. For people in too much pain to do the floor version, the PT suggested standing a short distance from a wall and pushing the hips toward it, then progressing.

The same exercise fixed a recurrence years later. A family member who'd had corticosteroid injections without lasting relief was later told by a doctor in Scandinavia to do exactly the same exercises, though another friend did ultimately need surgery. Huberman's lesson is to know which direction your disc bulges, because that tells you which movements to avoid and which to emphasize. It's also why he builds posterior-chain strength with exercises like glute-ham raises and Nordic curls. He declines to take sides in debates between PTs, chiropractors and MDs, noting that every profession has a range of good and bad practitioners and that treatment traditions differ by country.

Sciatica and Referred Pain

Huberman describes sciatica as tingling, pain or numbness (or some combination) that can run from the lower back and glutes through the hip and down the leg, sometimes into the foot. Much of it comes from the same thing already discussed: disc bulges in the lower lumbar spine pressing on nerves that serve those areas. Referred pain can also show up in areas that the compressed nerve doesn't directly supply. He jokes that he's been warned about carrying his wallet in his back pocket and now moves it to the front when he sits. He promises a full episode on sciatica later. The practical principle for now: figure out whether a disc is bulging, and in which direction, so you can use movements that ease the "cream" back into place instead of pushing it further out.

Distant Stabilizers: Neck, Feet, Breathing and Staggered Stance

Drawing on Dr. Wheeler, Huberman explains that the muscles stabilizing the spine include some that are always working and others we can train to engage more. The first target is the front of the neck. With so much time spent on phones and laptops, many people are taking on a "C shape," with the chin drifting toward the chest. To strengthen the front of the neck without adding size, put your fists under both sides of your jaw, keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose, then press the chin down against your fists for 10-second static holds, three or four reps, for two to five sets. He says it also helps posture and breathing through the airway.

Next are the feet. "Your feet are the foundation of your entire body," he says, and "the stronger your feet are, the healthier the rest of your body is going to be." Working on his feet cured his shin splints and helped his lower back. The simplest drill is learning to spread your toes so none touch. It took him a couple of weeks to manage on both feet, and commercial toe spreaders or folded paper towels can help at first. A more advanced goal is lifting each toe independently, including the big toe, which he's still working on. Toe spreading activates the arch, the top of the foot and the front of the shin, creating a stable base up the chain. He says emerging research links toe strength to aspects of aging and even neurocognitive longevity, which he'll cover later.

For breathing, all the experts recommend bracing by filling the torso with air during heavy lifts, which makes a stable "canister" (Andy Galpin discussed this too). At rest, though, you want the opposite: relaxed nasal belly breathing, where the belly moves out on the inhale. Finally, to train the abs in a real-world way, Huberman does dumbbell curls and overhead triceps extensions in a staggered stance. Feet are wide enough apart side to side (not a narrow cross-country-skier stance), knees slightly bent, and the belly button kept facing straight ahead, ideally checked in a mirror. That creates anti-rotation work for the obliques and abs, mimicking the reaching and twisting movements where people typically hurt their backs in daily life. Yoga and Pilates instructors cue the same thing when they tell you to keep the belly button facing forward.

Medial Glute Activation and the Lumbar Towel Roll

Many people feel pain across the lowest part of the back near the top of the pelvis. Sometimes that comes from a weak or poorly activated medial glute, which stabilizes the pelvis side to side during walking and running, or from muscle spasms in that area. Huberman learned a fix from Jeff Cavaliere of AthleanX. Lie on your side on your forearm as if about to do a side plank, but keep the bottom leg on the floor. Point the top leg's toe down, touch it to the floor in front of you, then sweep the leg back and up with the heel toward the back wall and ceiling. Do five to ten reps, then hold the final rep for 10 to 20 seconds, pressing your thumb into the top of the glute to feel it work. Do both sides. Many people get relief that lasts for hours, and he does it as a leg-day warm-up or for a few minutes while watching TV. He says most people are poor at activating this muscle even if they do posterior-chain work like kettlebell swings or glute-ham raises.

For anyone with a posterior disc bulge, he recommends putting a rolled-up towel behind the lower back when sitting, driving or flying, keeping the back straight or slightly arched instead of rounded, so the "cream" isn't squeezed backward.

The Psoas Stretch

The psoas connects the spine to the pelvis and interacts with the diaphragm. It gets tight from sitting, from heavy hip-hinge training followed by travel, and from stress held in the midsection. The stretch McGill showed Huberman: get into the longest lunge you safely can, raise the arm on the same side as the back leg overhead with the palm parallel to the ceiling, and turn the wrist so the pinky rotates toward your head, reaching long from the back heel to the palm. Hold 5 to 10 seconds with normal breathing, then switch sides. It differs from a standard warrior pose because of the palm and pinky position, which McGill says also engages nerve, fascia and muscle connections along the whole line. Afterward you should feel taller, less pulled forward, and more relaxed at the spine-pelvis connection. It can be done anywhere, including in an airport or after getting out of the car.

Awareness: The Final Protocol

The last protocol is purely mental: noticing your own movement patterns. Where are your feet when you sit, drive or stand at a desk? Do you round your lower back while texting? Do you always lean on one hip, which might point to a weak medial glute, weak feet or a habitual stance? Do you belly breathe at rest? Are your shoulders rolled forward because you do far more pushing than pulling? He stresses that the goal isn't neurotic self-monitoring, just a few minutes of attention over a few days, because many causes of back, neck or sciatic pain are simple to fix.

He also notes what he deliberately left out. The evidence for laser therapy is weak, while Pilates, yoga and walking all have good evidence for back pain. He describes the dozen protocols as "a buffet of things that you could explore and experiment with," not a daily checklist, and asks people in pain to go slowly and remember that epidurals, painkillers and surgery all have their place.

Conclusion

Huberman's main message is that a strong, pain-resistant back depends on the whole body, not just the spine. Understanding the vertebra-disc-nerve setup (the Oreo) explains why crunches can hurt, why extension movements like cobra push-ups relieved his own disc bulge, and why creating space and stability matter so much. McGill's Big Three build a stiff, stable core in five to ten minutes a week. Neck strength, toe spreading, belly breathing at rest, staggered-stance anti-rotation training, medial glute activation, a lumbar towel roll and the McGill psoas stretch strengthen the chain from the feet to the head. Paying attention to posture, how you stand and how you breathe ties it all together. It's all free, takes little time and needs no equipment, but it's meant to support professional diagnosis and care, not replace them.

This is a summary of "Protocols to Strengthen & Pain Proof Your Back" from Huberman Lab, giving you the GIST so you can decide if you want the REST. Listen to the full episode.