Training to eliminate back pain

[Elephant]

My wife has frequent back pain, including that her back muscles periodically "grab". She's in her early 60s and completely untrained.

I figure getting her doing deadlifts, squats, bench, press and lat pulldowns would help, progressing her slowly, making sure form is correct and not pushing if there's pain. She's more in the mode of willing to try than eager to try. Getting stronger, improving balance, strengthening bones would all be good.

Any suggestions for making this work? (I suggested a starting strength coach, but she doesn't want to try that, at least for the moment.)

[Austin Baraki]

I suggested a starting strength coach, but she doesn't want to try that, at least for the moment.

If you have access to one, why not?

[Elephant]

If you have access to one, why not?

Because she said no. I've been trying to get her to lift for some time. Pushing for a coach at this point would likely mean delaying the project indefinitely.

I'm not asking how to coach lifts. Things like Deadlift starting Position Critique are very useful. It's more a question of general approach, beyond the idea of proceeding very slowly and carefully and making sure form is correct.

[Clay Simczyk]

Don't coach your wife. If she doesn't want to go to a coach she's not going to follow though on a program. I managed to get my wife to go to a real coach for a couple weeks and that was it.

[Nermin]

Don't coach your wife.

I'm finding this to be sage advice. And don't feed them after midnight.

[Clay Simczyk]

have her watch the videos with Sully

Won't help. We're actually good friends with this coach. She can see first hand what lifting does. She often complains that my ass is better than hers. She knows the answer is squats, it's just a different way of arguing.

Don't coach your wife.

[Clay Simczyk]

OP, if you want to try and get her to convince herself that she should get coached and get strong to solve her back pain, show her some of the threads on the forum; for instance, mine on the Testimonials page.

[Fiddler]

Here's a testimonial: I'm 70 years old, and have a couple of old back injuries that can make it impossible to even stand up until I get treatment. As long as I train, I never have a bit of back pain. Only when I let myself get out of shape and sedentary, do I ever have any problems. I do the basic five, with a couple of auxiliary lifts.

My lady friend works out doing Pilates and such, but I can't get her to lift, despite what it's done for me. I think it's for two reasons: She thinks it is unfeminine, and she thinks she'll get bulky. She's a scientific, rational kind of person, but not on this issue. No matter what kind of empirical or medical data I present her, she'll have no part of it. I don't have an answer, but I keep planting seeds, hoping an idea will grow in her head.

I concur about not training spouses or significant others. You need distance and no emotional attachment.

[Les Hahn]

Yes, you can coach your wife. It is a little different relationship than coach/client, but you can make it work.

I say just try to run the program (slowly). Anticipate stalls and make small modifications to avoid them. That should keep everything positive. I started training someone that had back issues from working. She has over doubled her squat and deadlift in 5 weeks, and her back pain in gone. :-)

[Elephant]

The main plan is to proceed rather slowly and to insist on proper form. Would it be a bad idea to train only the deadlift for a while, then introduce other movements later?

The testimonials on this site were one of the main reasons she agreed to try lifting.

I agree that coaching one's wife is far from optimal, but it seems better than nothing.