One of the most common things we see at The Reinge Clinic is back pain. This is also one of the main reasons people have time off work, so it is worth avoiding! If you are self employed, with a physical job, it is even more important to avoid back pain that may stop you being able to work.
So why do so many people get back pain? 🤔 Well simply put it is all about posture. Posture is a buzz word these days, but what exactly does it mean and why is it so important.
Our bodies are fundamentally designed to be in balance and upright! Any deviation from this perfect position leads us liable to develop pain. Many people spend their days sitting, whether at a desk, in a sofa, in the car.... we sit for a huge amount of the day and this effects several areas of the body, but the one I'm going to focus on today is the pelvis. The pelvis should be sitting in a straight position, it shouldn't tip forwards or backwards. It shouldn't rotate to one side or another but sit centrally.
Most people with back pain will have a pelvis which is not straight. More often than not, it is tipped in a forward position. This is due to that sitting effect again! When we sit for long periods our hip flexors shorten. When we stand, those muscles stay shortened and this drags the pelvis down into a forward position. When this happens, it closes the natural gap that exists between the vertebrae of the lower back. As a result it gets stiff. Given more time in this position the disks of the lower back get squashed and if you then add rotation into the mix, it is easy to dislodge the disk slightly, otherwise known as a slipped disk. So, how do we avoid this.
Well the muscles of the core and specifically a muscle called the Transverse Abdominis, are designed to keep that pelvis straight. So the easiest way to keep back pain at bay, is to keep the core strong. A swiss ball is great for this, sit on it, try to balance on it, a quick Google search will give you loads of exercises. Also, those hip flexors I mentioned earlier? They need to be stretched to help the pelvis tip back to a neutral position, so again a quick search will show lots of stretches for this. If you are struggling give us a call. 😀
Back pain, in the main, is not difficult to fix and even when the disks have become “squashed”, or “slipped” there is loads we can do to realign everything and unsquash that disk.
So really there is no need to live with back pain.
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