Post-holiday health goals.

What December did to your back.

Six weeks of long drives, late nights, a couch, heavy shopping bags, and hauling boxes down from the attic. Then the whole thing ends and you sit still for a week.

Your joints stiffen when they are held in one position. The muscles that hold you upright get lazy when they are not asked to do anything. Hips get tight from sitting, and tight hips make the low back do their work.

None of that hurts while it is happening. It hurts on January 3rd when you decide to fix everything at once.

The January injury is real.

The pattern is always the same. Somebody has not trained in two months, goes hard on day one, feels great, goes hard again on day two, and on day three cannot straighten up.

The problem is rarely the exercise. It is the jump. Tissue adapts to load slowly. Your enthusiasm adapts instantly. Injuries live in the gap between the two.

Start smaller than feels satisfying.

Aim for the first three weeks to feel a little too easy. That is the point. You are building the habit and giving tissue time to catch up.

• Walk first. Twenty minutes most days, outside, before anything else. Walking feeds the discs in your low back and loosens hips better than most stretching.
• Two strength sessions a week, not five. Five is what you quit in February. Two is what you still do in June.
• Half the weight you think. Whatever you lifted in October is not where you start in January. Go light enough that the last rep is clean.
• Hips and glutes early. Bridges, sit-to-stands, and step-ups. Strong hips take load off a low back better than anything you do for the back itself.
• Warm up for five minutes. Not a stretch routine. Just move the joints you are about to use.

Add about ten percent a week. That is slower than you want and faster than you think.

Lift the boxes back up properly.

Taking the decorations down puts more people on our table than the gym does. Same rules as always, and they are worth repeating because everybody knows them and nobody uses them on a ladder in a hurry.

Hips and knees bend, back stays as it is. Load close to your body. Turn with your feet, never your spine. Two trips beat one hero trip. If it is overhead, get it down to waist level before you carry it anywhere.

Sleep, water, and the unglamorous parts.

Recovery is where you actually get stronger. Short sleep makes everything hurt more, and January is a month people cut sleep to fit in workouts. That trade rarely pays.

Drink water. Discs behave better hydrated, and most people run dry in winter without noticing because they are not thirsty.

Give yourself a rest day between hard sessions early on. Soreness two days after a workout is normal. Sharp pain, pain in one specific spot, or anything running down a leg or arm is not, and it is worth an exam rather than a week of hoping.

If your back is already the thing stopping you.

Plenty of people spend January intending to get fit and spend it managing a back instead. If that is you, get it examined rather than working around it for another year.

Your first visit runs about an hour. Dr. Boss asks what happened, watches you move, finds which joints have stopped and which muscles are covering for them, and shows you what he found on a 3D model of the spine. You leave with a plan you can repeat back to someone, and a rough number of visits.

Most plans include therapeutic exercises, because getting motion back is only half of it. Strength is what lets you train again without ending up back on the table. We take most major plans and self-pay is available. Give us your plan details when you book and we will check your coverage before you arrive.

Reviewed by Dr. Christopher Boss, DC, Boss Chiropractic. Last updated September 11, 2026.

This page is general information, not medical advice. What is right for you depends on your exam. Dr. Boss will tell you straight whether we can help, and where to go if we cannot.