Understanding Lower Back Pain
As people age they start to notice the aches and pains that comes with getting older. Getting out of bed is harder, getting up from bed is harder, going down the stairs is harder, and basically everything that requires moving feels harder.
Why Lower Back Pain Develops
A lot of people, and I mean a lot of people really believe aging equals lower back pain automatically or pain in general is expected. I do agree that as you age functions do start declining and parts of us are not the same — biologically that is also true. What else is true, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Many people become more inactive as they age and this fact causes so many aches and pains previously mentioned.
For example, lets say someone sits majority of their day and after their day is over they go from their job or desk to their couch or bed. Adding onto that, walking on average (very important to know average) less than 3,000 - 4,000 steps/day — less than 21,000 - 28,000 steps/week on average. This combination leads to a stuck position majority of our day against gravity (which is always pressing onto our spine vertically every second of every day) and lack of movement for our muscles. When walking in misalignment and doing activities in this repeated pattern can cause improper load onto joints and muscles eventually causing excessive load onto those said parts leading to unwarranted pain (e.g., lower back pain).
What Is the Worst Posture?
Now, you may be wondering, “What is the worst posture to be in for myself?” and the answer may surprise you — it definitely surprised me too. Instantly, rounded shoulders, slouching, hump back, and whatever other interesting descriptors we used to describe “bad posture” are what you will think as the worst posture. In reality, the worst posture is the posture you stay in the longest. Surprise! Before you click off because I didn’t say what you were expecting, I can explain. You see as humans, we are very functional in all planes of movement (front, back, side-to-side, horizontal, diagonal rotation, asymmetrical positions, circumduction movements, etc.) and we have the privilege to move in those for a long time before we “age”.
Remember that saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”, this is where it really shines bright or painfully bright into our lives. When we stop doing other activities (such as walking less) we are teaching our body to actually get better at moving less and becoming stronger at being stiffer. For muscle tendons that’s great, but for functional human beings maybe not so much. Your body must be able to move in all types of weird positions and that’s OK. It is OK to round your shoulders, to slouch, and to over extend your back. The difference is for how LONG are you in those positions — all day, few hours, or just momentarily.
When we stay stuck in these repetitive patterns it causes us pain because the muscle fibers are not as elastic as they should be. In the same way, even staying in “neutral posture” all day cannot be the best for you because you are staying repetitive in a neutral position. Your body can be exhausted from just standing or sitting up straight for hours. Your body will start having muscular fatigue and want a break — hence why you would slouch if you kept your posture up all day or lean to the side. To combat this fatigue, your body will learn how to make the muscle fibers and other connective tissues around it stay more “stuck” or inelastic.
Another way to view this is to imagine you driving a car and the steering wheel is in a “neutral” position. We want that for going straight most of the time, but what if we have to turn to the right? The steering wheel is so used to going straight and not turning much it became more rigid in that position. Being more rigid in that position makes it harder for us to turn to the right which can be dangerous when we need a more fluid turning of the steering wheel towards the direction we want. This applies to all human musculoskeletal areas, however, for this post we are focusing on the lower back.
How to Fix Lower Back Pain
To fix lower back pain you can focus on these 3 areas:
Weak/Dysfunctional Core Musculature
Mobility In The Lumbar Region
Muscle Fibers/Connective Tissue Elasticity
Weak/Dysfunctional Core Musculature
When we think of core, we typically think of “abs” and “obliques” instead of abs, external and internal obliques, transverse abdominis (TVA), quadratus lumborum (QL), and our pelvis interconnected to all of that. If you had an anterior pelvic tilt pattern you would want to mobilize the pelvis posteriorly (backwards) to make it more mobile again (similar to making the steering wheel less rigid). Vice versa for a posterior pelvic tilt — mobilizing the pelvis more forward. For either direction you are going, you would want to learn how to contract your TVA muscles to stabilize your spine better as well as your pelvis.
A lot of times by not properly contracting the entire core together causes instability in the pelvis which can make other body parts work more (e.g., the lower back) — this can cause pain that is felt from being stuck in a position for too long or moving with just the lower back.
If you want more help pertaining to you and understanding what your issue may be come talk to us! We’d love to help out or give you any resources that can steer you in the right path.
Mobility in The Lumbar Region
We mentioned this briefly already, to reiterate, if your lumbar is not able to go into a full curve like a “C” then you would want to focus on addressing that issue. If you have a hard time trying to extend your lower back because it is so flat in the back. Then you would want to learn how to curve your lower back with the front core muscles engaged (abs, obliques, and TVA) as you extend backwards.
In doing so, you will feel a lot better by the fact that you body is regaining function and range that it used to have. Almost like getting back personal free time if you lost it due to whatever reasons — make some time for yourself! Anyway, by bringing back your mobility you are also introducing some synovial fluid back into your joints and taking the rigidity out from repetitive work patterns. Something my professor used to say in my undergrad, “Some is better than none, and more is better than some.” This hits so hard when it comes to appropriate movement and mobility.
Muscle Fibers/Connective Tissue Elasticity
This point alone can be its own post. Honestly, all of them can be their own post. At the time of writing this I have not made a post explaining what this means so I will link it in the future when I do make it. As for now, I am going to speak as if you have some idea what this topic is about.
When parts of us are rigid, it also means that our muscle fibers and connective tissue properties are not as stretchable (elastic) as they should be. A good way to address this is by:
Self-myofascial releasing (SMR) yourself with a lacrosse ball or trigger point ball
Stretching any tight muscles (gently 10s in the beginning, deeper after for another 20-50s)
Combing all of that with some walking.
Walking in itself will help a lot of lack of movement/mobility issues, however, if you walk continuously without proper maintenance, then you can possibly develop future issues down the line. Kind of like driving your car with the oil slowly going down and not replacing it — in short, stretch your tight muscles after walking!
Closing Thoughts
All that said, this ends our short talk of understanding lower back pain. As you can see it is not only “age” that can impact you on your lower back health. Addressing the other root issues first can go a long way into you feeling like your younger self again.
If you want to come talk to us about your health concerns or goals deeper, we’d love that. Stay moving in other positions throughout the day and stay walking. See you in the next post!
Derreck - B.Sc. in Kinesiology | Corrective Exercise Specialist - TBMM-CES | CPT