Nathan Appleby

🇺🇸 Husband, Father, Christ Follower | DPT, Director of Performance @leadfitco | help busy professionals overcome back pain in 4 months |👇

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

If I wanted to get rid low back pain in the next 4 months, here’s exactly what I’d do.

First, and this is the most important thing from a healing standpoint: you have to actually believe it’s possible. Not as a platitude. As a prerequisite.

Neuroscience is just now proving what the Bible said a long time ago. Hebrews 11:1, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen. You have to believe it before you see it in the natural.

Now say the word “manifestation” in a Christian circle and watch how fast you get labeled new age. But the truth is the Bible repeatedly talks about the power of life and death being in the tongue. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So when you constantly say “I have chronic back pain,” “my back always hurts when I deadlift,” “my back hurts when I sit too long,” “my back hurts when I bend over to tie my shoes,” you are not just describing your pain. From a neuroscience standpoint, you are feeding and strengthening the exact neural pathway that links that action to pain. Every time you say it, you reinforce it. You’re literally speaking the circuit into existence.

Step one to getting out of low back pain is to stop speaking the everyday things that “always” cause it. You have to starve that pathway before you can build a new one.

Step two is load management. It’s simple math. Whatever you’re doing physiologically is more than your body can currently tolerate. And when you pair that with avoiding painful movements and constantly reinforcing that they’re painful, you shrink your capacity. You shrink your tolerance. Every time.

So the actionable first step is finding your baseline. Can you sit 10 minutes pain free? Stand 10 minutes pain free? Whatever it is, you need brutal clarity on what you can and can’t do right now.

Then it’s math. You progress, slowly, day by day, week by week. Same as business. Same as finances. Same as relationships. You don’t get to skip to the end. It’s a process, and the process is the only way through.

Here’s how you actually build load capacity in the low back.

Back extension isometrics. The classic A-frame back extension machine, or a Roman chair, in literally every gym. Get in a straight line and hold it. Start wherever you can, even if that’s 10 seconds. Build it day by day, week by week. As your time improves, you’re not just getting stronger. You’re building a new neural pathway that says you can handle more. You’re reinforcing belief with evidence.

A modified deadlift. Learning how to properly pick something up off the floor is non-negotiable. A deadlift isn’t something to avoid forever. Regressed correctly, it’s a rehab tool, not a threat.

A loaded carry. Something like a farmer’s carry. Same principle. Start at your baseline, however small, and progress systematically.

And the one nobody wants to hear.

Check your actual body weight.

If you’re carrying extra weight around your midsection, physics doesn’t care about your feelings. That extra load shifts your center of mass forward and puts more demand directly on your back muscles every single time you stand, bend, or lift.

Get to a healthy body weight and you immediately increase what your back can tolerate, because you’ve decreased the load it’s fighting against 24/7.

Belief. Language. Load management. Bodyweight.

Run these four principles for four months, even with decades of failed injections, failed surgeries, failed everything, and you will build a back that’s stronger than the one you broke down.

I hope this helps somebody.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

-Nathan

[Gabe Pluguez @Gabepluguez]

We rented out a private training facility for a private client. Going deep with @NathanApplebyPT 🫡

[Gabe Pluguez @Gabepluguez]

Greatful for mentorship of @NathanApplebyPT

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

Most people trying to fix their back have never actually tested it. They just avoid whatever hurts and hope. Time your sitting tolerance. Time your walking tolerance. Write the numbers down. You cannot improve a number you never measured.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

Almost all physical pain comes down to 1 equation.

Demand exceeded capacity.

99% of people respond to physical pain with lowering the demand. It seems intuitive.

But it shrinks your threshold and tolerance.

Raise your capacity instead.

[Gabe Pluguez @Gabepluguez]

When gay marriage was officially endorsed by the United Methodist Church, the Church that owns this coffee shop left the organization.

They gave up funding to uphold Biblical truth. Then, after a period of trial, they bought the entire shopping center.

Now the rent from the businesses in the shopping center help fund the church.

This coffee shop was part of the purchase, which is now explicitly Christian, and an oasis of Gods presence in radically liberal Orlando, Florida.

This place is an inspiration to me.

Working here when I visit family reminds me that God always honors obedience and that God gives us the power to produce wealth so that he can establish his covenant with his people.

Never ever cave on your Biblical convictions. Even in the face of so called “Christians”.

Even though trial will follow, God will always take care of you in the end. He has your self interest and victory in mind, and wants to make His name known when others observe your righteousness and victory - just like he has here.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

That cushioned Hoka you trust for support is working against you.

Here's the mechanism:

Your foot has thousands of receptors packed into the skin and joints. They fire constant signals to your brain about pressure, texture, and where your body is in space. This is proprioception. It's how you balance without thinking about it.

Bury that foot in two inches of foam and you block the signal. The receptors are still there. The information reaching your brain isn't. Research comparing barefoot and minimalist shoes to thick cushioned shoes shows measurable drops in sensory feedback and changes in how people load their joints because of it.

Less signal in. Less accurate output.

And your stabilizers pay the price. The tibialis posterior. The intrinsic foot muscles. The peroneals. They only fire correctly when they get real feedback from the ground.

Use it or lose it. Underused muscles weaken. Weak stabilizers mean your arch collapses more under load. And that changes how force travels up the chain.

This is the part people miss.

Your foot isn't isolated. It's the base of a kinetic chain running through your ankle, knee, hip, and straight into your lumbar spine. When your foot can't stabilize on contact, your body compensates somewhere else. Usually that's your pelvis, tilting and rotating to load your lower back asymmetrically with every step.

Thousands of steps a day. Every day. For years.

Research on minimalist and barefoot style training backs this up. Improvements in intrinsic foot strength and proprioceptive accuracy when people transition properly. Not because barefoot is magic. Because the nervous system starts getting real information again and the muscles that were asleep wake up.

If you've been chasing back pain by only looking at your back, you're missing half the picture.

Sometimes the fix starts at the ground.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

When your back locks up, resist two urges:

Do not freeze in fear and do not white knuckle through it.

Find what position eases it, lean into that, and remove whatever is flaming the fire.

If bending forward hurts - don't sit all day

If being upright hurts - don't stand all day

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

You don’t need 10+ exercises to fix a painful back.

You need 3 things done consistently:

1. A loaded hold
2. A progressive hinge pattern
3. A weighted carry

Simple and consistent beats complicated.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

Had a guy tell me his back was doomed because his dad's back was wrecked by 60.

That's just a cop out to hide behind not doing the necessary work.

Do genetics matter? Sure. Does that mean his arthritis is the reason you're 40 pounds overweight and sedentary with back pain? Nope.

Your dad's spine is not your spine.

[Gabe Pluguez @Gabepluguez]

Every great in the history of the world sounded like an absolute Pschypath at some point even to the people closest to them.

The disciples doubted Jesus.

The entire nation of Israel wanted to murder Caleb for saying they should take the promised land.

If people you lead don't sometimes think your vision is insane, vision is not big enough.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

@Gabepluguez If you're sounding like less of a psychopath to me, does that mean i'm also becoming one?

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

Everyone says seeing is believing.

Flip it.

You believe first, then you build the proof.

Wait for proof before you believe and you will wait for a long time, because your body follows what your mind decided what’s true.

[Gabe Pluguez @Gabepluguez]

Wife and I raw hammering mission work while traveling.

Mission >

All out war against culture in Christian world that tolerates mediocre physical stewardship.

Disgusting insult to God.

So much harm brought by the example it sets to children.

We are here to burn it down and make God’s name known.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

@Gabepluguez AMEN

[Ella Æterna💫 @GoodWildandFree]

Super tired but doing what my teacher told me to do!

Walk + Worship music 4 spine health!

😃😃😃

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

@GoodWildandFree Yes! No better way to start the day 💪🏻

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

@AskCoachKev Learn how to track your calories and protein. Mind opening how much we actually eat

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

@micheal_ws18 Legend. True winners make Monday Leg day

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

Ever notice how every back pain treatment has diehards.

McGill Big 3 has diehards. McKenzie has diehards. Manual therapy purists. Exercise-only purists. Chiro loyalists.

All swear by their method. All can point to research backing them up.

What if the treatment isn’t the active ingredient?

What if it’s belief?

The mind convincing the body that relief is finally on the way.

[Nathan Appleby @NathanApplebyPT]

You don’t need 10+ exercises to fix a painful back.

You need 3 things done consistently:

1. A loaded hold
2. A progressive hinge pattern
3. A weighted carry

Simple and consistent beats complicated.