The Hauber Method™ for Back Care
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I’ve been a functional strength and movement specialist for more than 2 decades. I also have more than 15 years of experience as a yoga teacher and practitioner.
I survived major spinal fusion (of almost my whole spine) as a means of dealing with severe scoliosis as a teenager (which you can read about here). I found strength training in college, and despite my massive spinal hardware and still-crooked torso, I have not had any persistent pain in my back since that time. Why? |
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How does targeted strength training stop someone’s back from hurting?
This question has fascinated me for a long time.
When I first developed the Hauber Method™ in 2011, after my yoga teacher training, I thought it had to do specifically with the muscles and limbs in relation to the spine. Angles and tension. In other words, posture.
My teaching of students focused on stretching hamstrings, opening the chest muscles, strengthening the glutes and back, and getting more range of motion in the hip joint.
And it worked!
Clients would come to me because their other solutions for back pain did not work.
They had tried pain pills, steroid shots, physical therapy, and even surgery for back pain treatment . . . and it either didn't work or relief was very short term.
Hands down, they were all simply tired of the daily struggle with pain and the reactions of friends and family who just didn’t understand what they were going through.
With the Hauber Method™, I taught them how to understand and relieve their pain without drugs or surgery, and opened the door for them to have a fantastic relationship with their own body.
This question has fascinated me for a long time.
When I first developed the Hauber Method™ in 2011, after my yoga teacher training, I thought it had to do specifically with the muscles and limbs in relation to the spine. Angles and tension. In other words, posture.
My teaching of students focused on stretching hamstrings, opening the chest muscles, strengthening the glutes and back, and getting more range of motion in the hip joint.
And it worked!
Clients would come to me because their other solutions for back pain did not work.
They had tried pain pills, steroid shots, physical therapy, and even surgery for back pain treatment . . . and it either didn't work or relief was very short term.
Hands down, they were all simply tired of the daily struggle with pain and the reactions of friends and family who just didn’t understand what they were going through.
With the Hauber Method™, I taught them how to understand and relieve their pain without drugs or surgery, and opened the door for them to have a fantastic relationship with their own body.
I came to Sara's workshop with a nagging pain, and left without it! What more needs to be said?
--Diane N.
The Hauber Method™ has eliminated my lower back problems completely! I believe that because you start from first principles and build up from there, you also give us the tools to understand, evaluate, and correct any future problems we may have. During my 60 years on this planet, I have tried many types of bodywork, yoga, etc., to stop my pain, and I love them all, but The Hauber Method™ is the ONLY thing that has given me lasting relief. --Karen F.
Sara Hauber is an excellent teacher, explaining the mechanics of the human body and movement with great examples and demonstrations, individualized attention, and so much expertise. And she makes it all fun while being super approachable and concerned about each student. --Laura O.
If yoga instructors would take her courses as part of their training we would have fewer hip and back injuries. --Joy M.
I have taken several of Sara's workshops and come away from each one with useful information and techniques I can use that help improve the way I feel. Knowledge is power, so it feels good to learn things that encourage a friendlier relationship with my own joints. --Kathy W.
--Diane N.
The Hauber Method™ has eliminated my lower back problems completely! I believe that because you start from first principles and build up from there, you also give us the tools to understand, evaluate, and correct any future problems we may have. During my 60 years on this planet, I have tried many types of bodywork, yoga, etc., to stop my pain, and I love them all, but The Hauber Method™ is the ONLY thing that has given me lasting relief. --Karen F.
Sara Hauber is an excellent teacher, explaining the mechanics of the human body and movement with great examples and demonstrations, individualized attention, and so much expertise. And she makes it all fun while being super approachable and concerned about each student. --Laura O.
If yoga instructors would take her courses as part of their training we would have fewer hip and back injuries. --Joy M.
I have taken several of Sara's workshops and come away from each one with useful information and techniques I can use that help improve the way I feel. Knowledge is power, so it feels good to learn things that encourage a friendlier relationship with my own joints. --Kathy W.
But this is the crazy thing:
This kind of exercise-and-stretching program does not work for everyone.
Why?
If back pain is due to bad posture or poor positioning of muscles and joints relative to each other, then why don’t the same exercises and stretches eliminate pain for everyone?
I went on to get a PhD to learn more about that question. I studied nonspecific persistent back pain, which is pain that lasts even when there is no structural or anatomical reason for the pain.
It was during the 4 years of my intensive research that I discovered the following:
This kind of exercise-and-stretching program does not work for everyone.
Why?
If back pain is due to bad posture or poor positioning of muscles and joints relative to each other, then why don’t the same exercises and stretches eliminate pain for everyone?
I went on to get a PhD to learn more about that question. I studied nonspecific persistent back pain, which is pain that lasts even when there is no structural or anatomical reason for the pain.
It was during the 4 years of my intensive research that I discovered the following:
- Research has not consistently shown a relationship between posture and pain
- (Research also shows no correlation whatsoever between the findings on a person's spinal imaging (X-ray or MRI) and the presense of pain--but that's a story for another time...)
- A person’s life stress has more to do with their experience of pain than their “bad posture”
- Social factors are likely to play a larger role in someone’s body feeling good and pain free than doing specific exercises.
What makes the Hauber Method™ so effective for some people, and not for others?
After so much research and studying, I think I have some answers:
After so much research and studying, I think I have some answers:
1. My method of working with people is incredibly empowering. I make it clear, “Your muscles are within your control. You have agency. You are not and need not be a victim to pain.” That makes people feel safe when life stressors are making people feel exactly the opposite. In short, the Hauber Method™ is a remedy to the powerlessness we all feel at different times in modern life. We’re gaining some control through strengthening our own body.
2. Knowing how the body works is also empowering. When I explain how muscles and joints work together, and which exercises do what, and how this stretch affects the positioning of that limb, it’s like getting the key to a mystery. It’s fun to know about the body! It’s a relatively simple system that makes sense. When the mystery is gone, it’s also a relief. “Ah, my body is not out to hurt me! It’s my best friend!” Those thoughts also calm the central nervous system, which is where pain is produced.
3. Strength training and stretching work for people who have other social support resources at their disposal. The Hauber Method™ can’t create what many people with the highest levels of chronic pain actually need: safe relationships, a safe family, a secure job, a safe community, a social safety net. When I say “safe”, I mean “a place you can be 100% yourself and be 100% accepted and loved and respected”, rather than insulted, shamed, put down, ignored, abused, or otherwise powerless. Back pain becomes chronic when interpersonal or social threat is chronic, and the threat doesn’t even have to be conscious—or current. Thus, the Hauber Method™ works for people whose threat level is low enough that being empowered in their own body helps them feel safe. When the brain’s perceived threat level is too high (even if unconscious!), my training doesn’t stand a chance of helping.
If you want to strengthen your back, core, glutes, and entire body while learning to love and appreciate yourself and everything your body does for you, then the Hauber Method™ will always be the approach I recommend. I still do it myself, and it still makes me feel great.
If you have pain that exercise doesn't help, or if your pain is so high that you can’t manage the exercises and stretches I teach, then there is something in your social environment (probably more than one thing) that is setting off major alarms in your brain, causing the pain to persist.
I wrote a blog post about what kinds of treatments work when the Hauber Method™ is not enough, way back when I had a separate website for the Hauber Method™. Those treatments work to help you calm your central nervous system, which is the root of persisting pain. I’m revising that post to add some more contemporary resources—including some new tools I am developing based on my own research. Stay tuned.
If you have pain that exercise doesn't help, or if your pain is so high that you can’t manage the exercises and stretches I teach, then there is something in your social environment (probably more than one thing) that is setting off major alarms in your brain, causing the pain to persist.
I wrote a blog post about what kinds of treatments work when the Hauber Method™ is not enough, way back when I had a separate website for the Hauber Method™. Those treatments work to help you calm your central nervous system, which is the root of persisting pain. I’m revising that post to add some more contemporary resources—including some new tools I am developing based on my own research. Stay tuned.
Text updated March 2026.