Low Back Pain - Part 1 of 3
I am no stranger to low back pain. The first time I had a sudden onset of low back pain was when I was 8 months pregnant with my second child. I was reaching over to lift up my first born when I felt that sudden jolt of pain in my low back. Standing up straight was not an option. I knew I had a problem as I found myself on my hands and knees. I don’t recall how I got better but I do recall that medication of any kind was not an option for me, due to my pregnancy and that I pretty much had to stay in a comfortable position for a couple of days as my lower back discomfort settled down.
But that wasn’t the last time I had an ‘out-of-the-blue’ encounter with sudden low back pain. The next time was a few years later as I returned home at about 5am after an early morning run where my husband was catching the live coverage of Princess Diana’a and Prince Charles wedding, waiting for me to get home before leaving for work as our young children slept. As I stepped up into our house, UGH…the low back pain was excrutiating. The cure this time, as I wasn’t pregnant, included some advil or tylenol and as little motion as possible as the pain simmered down.
As the years have passed, I have had a couple of other instances of these sudden low back incidences. On my last one (knock-on-wood) I thought that once I was better, I would try something different. That I would try and figure out why the strangest motions could, every few years, leave me working my way back up off the floor. So, this was one of the 3 times in my life that I have worked with a personal trainer.
I got in touch with a personal trainer that I trusted and said my goal in working with him was to help me figure out why an unusually active person could randomly and occasionally wrench out my lower back doing a seemingly innocuous activity, like gently bending over (to pick up a baby) or stepping into our home after a 10km run. And this is what I learned. I had muscle imbalances.
While I’m pretty active, I have mostly concentrated on the same activities/sports for the last several decades. For me, those have been things like running, hiking, skiing, snowboarding and water skiing. While each is a great activity, several of these are more seasonal…except for running. And running in our climate is something I’m able to enjoy year round. The result is stronger quads in comparison to my hamstrings and glutes. And to compound matters, as much as my chiropractor would ask about my stretching after a run, I never seemed to get around to this, which means my hamstrings got shorter and tighter. The result, for me, was that my underdeveloped glutes, in comparison to my quads, meant that my muscle chain in my back was left to take on all the load of my daily activities! I was setting myself up for a low back strain!!
As I studied to become a certified trainer, I learned more about low back pain (LBP), potential causes and prevention The following is a summary:
Consult a physician for clearance before starting a program to address LBP.
No one exercise program will work for all those who have LBP. What helps one person might hurt another.
Exercise is important to the prevention and treatment of LBP.
Maintaining and improving muscular balance across the joints is important (this and tight muscles were at the root of my LBP)
This is one area where it’s not advisable to ‘work through the pain’ as this is an indication of improper technique and/or exercise that should be avoided.
If you have LBP, as a general precaution, you should avoid (actually, if you are in the midst of a LBP episode, the following are pretty much not possible to do because of the discomfort)
Unsupported forward flexion (like I did 15Lbs pregnant with my second child - my core muscles stretched and all the front loaded baby weight gain)
twisting at the waist with turned feet, especially when carrying a load
lifting both legs at the same time while laying down or in a supine position
rapid movements, such as twisting, forward flexion, or hypertension
Muscular Endurance ( as opposed to muscular strength) is shown to the best goal for positive low back health. Therefore, focus on higher repetitions and lower resistance, using proper technique at all times, to build low back muscle endurance.