Influence of Pre-operative Back Muscle Exercise on Post-operative Outcomes After Spine Surgery

Participants will have been deemed to be medically safe to participate in exercise-based physical therapy based on their physician recommendation and may also undergo an in-person evaluation by a licensed physical therapist to evaluate their physical capacity. This will inform the frequency and intensity of exercise prescription according to a participant's identified physical impairments and activity tolerance levels. Based on this information, an exercise program will be implemented either via web-based HIPAA compliant platforms (e.g. Zoom or WebEx) or in the clinic(e.g if the participant does not have internet access) on a 1-2x/week basis for the 4-6 week pre-operative duration. Each exercise session will be approximately 30 minutes. During these sessions, exercises including gravity-assisted, body-weighted, or body-weight-augmented resistance exercises targeting the paraspinal extensor muscles (multifidus, erector spinae, latissimus dorsi, lower trapezius) will be performed at a mo