Relieve Low Back Pain | Reduce Low Back Pain | Canada's Leading Authority in Human Movement | Dev Chengkalath

In my physical therapy practice in Toronto, I often get people who have been in fairly chronic low back pain for a good chunk of time, something you might be familiar with. 

So let’s use your situation as an example. 

Because of the length of time you’ve been suffering, there’s a good chance that you’ve been to see at least one, if not multiple, health care practitioners such as physicians, physical therapists or chiropractors. 

One of the most common self or health professional “prescribed” treatments that you’ve probably been given in the past is to statically stretch your low back. 

Sound familiar yet?

In fact, you could even google low back pain relief related terms and you’d probably come across dozens upon dozens of websites all proposing various low back static stretches to get you feeling better.

Unfortunately, for most of you, stretching your low back in this manner doesn’t deal with the root causes of your low back pain.

Sure, it’ll feel good.

Temporarily. Stretching usually does.

But feeling good doesn’t always mean doing good. And in this case, stretching the poor muscles of your lower back is probably not a good idea.

Don’t get me wrong.

There are times when those tissues do need to be stretched out, but it’s not as often as most people think. 

So what’s the solution?

What should you do instead?

What you need to do is stabilize your spine. Unfortunately, here’s where it gets a little more complicated.

Stable doesn’t mean immobile. In this case, stable really means mobile under control. Control being the operative word.   

In the following clip, the Cat & Camel mobility exercise is demonstrated.

This movement is geared towards keeping your spine limber while still keeping control.

It’s NOT about going as far as you can, it’s about going as far as you can, UNDER CONTROL. 

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath

If you stop and break down every type of movement you do throughout your day, you’ll notice that they can be broken down into a few patterns or combinations thereof.

Dr. Stuart McGill, one of the world’s premier spine researchers, describes them as follows:

• Squat/Lift
• Lunge
• Twist
• Push/Pull
• Gait
• Balance

Now what if you did one of these, or a few of these, incorrectly?

What if you repeated that over and over again, day in, day out, day after day, week after week, year after year?

What if your compensation movement just so happened to be in your low back?

Perhaps every time you squat down to sit in a chair?

Or every time you bend down to tie your shoe laces?

Or every morning when you brush your teeth or wash your face?

Gold star for you if you’ve come to the conclusion that your bad movement pattern is probably making your low back pain worse.

Be nice to your spine.

How do you fix it?

Because we’re dealing with low back pain, one of the most important movement pattern skills to learn is abdominal bracing. This simple (not easy) skill can help you accomplish all the patterns listed above more efficiently and effectively, while protecting and stabilizing your spine.

As well, abdominal bracing can be an important factor for improving your posture, fixing those muscle related issues, and optimizing mobility.

Here’s how you do it:

Start by standing up tall.

Place your thumbs in the small of your back, with your fingers wrapped around your abdomen.
Slowly start to lean forward at the hips until you feel the muscles in your back and under you thumb start to tighten up.

As soon as you feel them tighten up, slowly come back up to an upright position, feeling for the muscles under you thumb to go slack again.

Once they’ve gone slack, tighten up your stomach muscles until you feel that same tightness develop in the muscles of your back under your thumb.

There you have it, the abdominal brace.

This is the first part of my exploration of bad movement patterns and how to fix them.

Join me tomorrow for the next episode.

Yours in movement,

Dev Chengkalath

In keeping with the theme of relieving your low back pain and getting you back to the things you love doing, I’m going to be talking about mobility.

What does mobility mean?

Mobility in this context is your body’s ability to move a joint and create range of motion. Some people equate mobility with flexibility. The only problem with that is when dealing with flexibility, we typically don’t take into consideration any of the neurological implications.

Too much mobility is NOT a good thing.

So how does mobility relate to low back pain?

As with everything in life, either too much or too little mobility can cause problems. However, with mobility issues, it depends on which joints are mobile and which ones are immobile.

In the case of low back pain, many sufferers will find they have hypermobile lumbar spines and hypomobile hips. Basically this means your low back moves way too much, more than likely as a compensation because your hips don’t move enough.

Remember, your body doesn’t know muscles. It knows movements.

If your hips don’t move enough and you can’t produce extension there, your body will find a way to recreate that desired movement by forcing extra movement elsewhere. Usually through your spine.

Combine the above with poor posture, weak core and a few adaptively changed tissues and you’ve got yourself a recipe for low back disaster.

With all these problems, your body’s biomechanical movement pattern will be severely altered. And you’ll keep inflaming and irritating the tissue in that area.

Irritated tissue= source of your pain.

Cause and source.

Remove the source, you get temporary relief. The band-aid solution. I’ll bet that’s not what you’re looking for.

Remove the cause and the source can heal.

Permanent solution.

So how do you get from having this problem to implementing the solution?

This is where I recommend Magnificent Mobility.

This amazing product is geared towards maximizing your hip mobility while maintaining your spinal stability. This DVD has everything you need to improve performance and maximize your potential. 

In only 10 minutes.

Flexibility, Performance & Health

And for most of you reading this, I am sure you can find that 10 minutes to dramatically improve your health. Even if it’s during commercials when you’re watching TV. 

Yours in mobility.

Dev Chengaklath

stiff spine and mobile hips = healthy back

In my physiotherapy practice, I use overhead squats to assess alignment, joint mobility and motor control.

This squat variation is a fantastic diagnostic physical therapy tool and is an important part of my clinical movement screen. These can be used to improve spinal stability while improving hip and shoulder mobility at the same time.

How does your overhead squat look?

Are you able to keep your heels on the ground?

How far down can you squat?

Does your torso lean forward or are you able to keep your chest up?

Where do you arms sit? Are they right overhead or do they angle forward?

Grab a stick and give it a try.

To your overhead squats.

Dev Chengkalath