Fix that pain in your lower back

Why do you have back pain?

Back pain is very common, according to various sources such diverse as the American college of sports medicine and doctors practices around town, 80 % of adults will suffer from serious back pain during their life time.

It is also one of the leading causes of people staying away from work.

In your case, you will not be able to play games or enjoy yourself as much as you want to because of back pain.

Most often it is difficult to pin point a specific cause for your back pain, because of all the little ligaments, muscles, bones and disks in your back.

Most often back pain occurs due to poor posture, bad habits at work such as sitting incorrectly, lifting incorrectly and lack of use – use your lower back and use it properly otherwise you might suffer from back pain.

In my practice I found it desirable to wholly concentrate in fixing back pain as quickly as possible, and I also found that with the proper exercises back pain can dramatically be reduced in 3 – 6 training sessions or 2 weeks. The best reason to use exercises to correct any imbalances in your lower back is:

1. a permanent solution to your back pain.

2. relief that lasts for months.

Look after your back as much as possible, prevention is much cheaper than the cure. Prevention is fairly simple:

• Training the muscles that support the spine

• Stretching if needed for your situation

• Good technique when playing sport or doing your daily tasks

What do you do when you have back pain ?

The back consists of 24 bony vertebra, to protect the spinal cord which runs inside them, each on top of the previous one, you have 50 joints in your back, you have a distinctive S- shape curve of your spine, the curves and the 50 joints gives you the wonderful ability to be able to throw a ball, swing a golf club and ben down to pick up your bags from the floor.

A proper assessment of you doing various activities are the best way to determine what you require to hopefully permanently fix your back.

In the interim you could do the following exercises:

• Crunches – done with your one leg bent and the other one straight to stabilize the hips, making sure that the back stays in contact with the floor throughout.

• Side Planks – lifting up onto the elbow and the feet, with the body perfectly straight.

• Bird dog exercise – support your body on your hands and knees then proceed to lift the left hand and the right leg up, followed by the right hand and the left leg. The pelvis are kept rigid throughout the exercise.

• Special back stretching – stand with your back perfectly straight, start bending over from the waist keeping the back flat with knees slightly bent. Lean over until you can feel the hamstrings stretch, keep pushing into your hips and whilst coming up to the standing position again.

   

These are my top choice exercise for back pain relief, increasing mobility and strengthening the muscles that support the back. I found this approach almost full-proof, my colleague Dr. Stuart Mcgill from Canada has done extensive research on the spine and treats most of his patients with these exercises.

How to approach back pain properly?

The 3 Key steps you can follow are:

1. Prevention – be sensible in your daily life, learn the proper technique to Deadlift and Squat, 2 fundamental activities which we seem to have lost the ability to perform correctly. Get active and move – take breaks from sitting behind your desk every hour for 10 minutes to allow the back to move naturally.

    

2. Assessment – having a proper assessment done of your lower back by a biokineticist will go a long way to resolve your lower back problems and give you the tools to permanently resolve your back pain.

    

3. Back strengthening and Mobility training – God made us to move, we have highly mobile joints which allow us to throw, kick, walk, run, ride a bike and lift heavy objects from the ground.

    

4. Postural or daily activity corrections – always maintain a neutral back position even when you are bending over and sitting. We always seem to end up sitting behind our desks staring at our computer screens, making our backs feel worse because of bad posture. We need to be aware of our posture to keep our backs healthy.

To get permanent relief for your lower back, follow the 4 steps above and see how your back gets better and stronger, so you can do what you want every day. Never ever having to look back again at how disabling your back pain was. It is very simple although not always easy to do.