Lower back disorders are a HUGE pain in the butt to deal with. You feel it when you’re sitting, in the morning, while tying your shoelace, basically all the time! It’s a daily reminder that your back can give out and it sucks!
Before we move on, the suggestions below are general guidelines developed through research and anecdotal evidence. Everyone is built different and will have various symptoms and treatments for their lower back pain. With that said, I do believe the general principles in this post should help minimize back pain discomfort.
Typical Suggestions
When you hurt your back or start to have lower back pain, the common advice is to rest and do nothing. When I herniated my discs in my lower back this was the verbatim advice given to me by the orthopedic surgeon. I tried this for a few days but felt that my back was getting worse by doing nothing. So I slowly started to implement various exercise modalities that didn’t hurt my back, simple things like foam rolling, stretching, walking, sled drags, and some body weight exercises.
While many people thought I was nuts for being back in the gym so quickly, the research (Malmivaara et al.) actually shows I was on the right track. Malmivaara et al, did research with nonspecific low back pain subjects. The subjects were split between bed rest, back-mobilizing exercises, or the continuation of ordinary activities as tolerated. In the end, patients with acute low back pain continuing ordinary activities within the limits permitted by the pain lead to more rapid recovery than either bed rest or back-mobilizing exercises.
In short, don’t sit around and do nothing. Go do something that you can tolerate, walk, stretch, swim, etc…
Bed Rest
In my experience as a personal trainer, sports performance coach, and athlete dealing with a few lower back disc herniation’s, bed rest was best in the initial stages of the injury. Afterwards it’s best, as the research above proved, to start to move around and get a little blood flow back into the muscles. Keeping in mind that you’re limited and not aggravating your back.
It makes sense, while at the initial stages rest maybe best however lying down all day does what to your body? Tightens it up, something we don’t want, especially when you’re injured.
Go at Your Pace
This is a principle that should be taken very seriously. Every injury is different and every person reacts differently to it. For me, it took about 6 months before I can do any type of resistance training. Everything I did leading up to that was a bunch of calisthenics, walking, sled drags, and stretching. I’ve seen others that have bounced back even quicker but it’s all subjective, so keep that in mind.
In short, listen to your body. This is particularly true, once you start to incorporate resistance training.
Stretch and Roll
Earlier we mentioned that tightening up is not what you want during an injury. This can lead to acute pain due to misalignment, not something we want.
A very simple way to prevent this is to roll out and stretch. Based on the concept of tensegrity , put simply, loosening the muscles that maybe pulling on the lower back will more than likely help alleviate the issue. Targeting areas like the piriformis, hip flexors, hamstrings, QL, etc… will probably make a bigger impact than directly focusing on the lower back. Below are few stretches I like to do.
Hip Flexor Fascial Stretch
more info here on to do the banded hip flexor stretch HERE.
Hamstring Fascial Stretch
More info on the banded hamstring stretch HERE.
Adductor Rock back Stretch (Groin)
More info here on the Adductor Rock Back Stretch HERE.
Banded Pigeon Stretch
Wrap Up
If you have a lower back disorder or sit all day make sure to move around do SOMETHING. This has proven to help with lower back pain and disorders. Things such as yoga can be a great tool to a better healthier back too. For us, we’ve found that a combination of resistance training, conditioning, and stretching catered to the individual to be an effective concurrent approach.
Research:
Malmivaara et al. “The Treatment of Acute Low Back Pain- Bed Rest, Exercises, or Ordinary Activity?”. New England Journal of Medicine. 1995 Feb 9;332(6):351-5.
