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

Over the last couple of blog posts I’ve explored the basic concept of sitting.

Surprisingly, when broken down, it’s not as simple as it seems. It’s not all about just plunking yourself down into your seat. There are rules and regulations to be followed for optimal spine health.

This holds true for the simple art of standing as well.

The Art of Standing

Standing is probably the first movement pattern that we lose over time. Sadly, in many cases, the loss of this ability will ultimately lead to the loss of personal independence.

So what can you do to hold on to your youth?

Practice proper standing.

Or more specifically, fix your sit to stand. This is what I spend countless hours helping my clients understand at my Toronto physiotherapy practice.

Since I’ve covered the optimal sit in the previous couple posts, I won’t belabor the point other than to reiterate how important that initial component of the sit to stand really is. It sets you up for success in the latter half, the stand.

The stand:

Let’s start off with the final position of the sit with your spine in neutral. Make sure your feet are wide enough apart. This will give you an appropriate base of support from which to initiate the standing motion. For most people, a hip to shoulder width distance tends to work well.

Now that your feet are set and you have a good foundation to start from, it’s time to switch focus to the hips.

As you start that standing movement, lean forward through your torso. By leaning forward, I don’t mean you should be flexing through your spine! This is a very important point to keep in mind.

Your back still maintains that neutral position with the motion taking place through your hips.

As you lift yourself up into a standing position, you should be bringing your hips forward by thrusting through your buttock. Think of this as hinging through your hips. The following video clip demonstrates the hip hinge pattern with movement through the hips while the spine remains in neutral.

A common movement pattern mistake here is using the muscles of the low back to ratchet or “pull” yourself up. This will put all sorts of potentially harmful forces through your low back.

Putting it all together:

Now that you’ve got the sit from before and you’re aware of how to initiate the stand, it’s time to integrate all those bits of information together and complete the sit to stand as demonstrated in the following video.

While this may not seem like a lot, if those of you with low back pain paid attention to how you executed this movement, over time you’d save your spine from some significant trauma.

Think of it this way, how many times do you sit and stand in a day? In a week? In a month?

Now if you could remove those unnecessary forces, how would your back feel?

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

Chinese Proverb

Have you ever noticed that the first item on almost every list of anything related to health or wellness is “get educated”?

This is by far the most important aspect of any successful program, no matter what the program deals with.

This basic tenet can be found in effective weight-loss programs, injury rehab programs, heart-health programs and even nutritional systems such as my personal favourite “Precision Nutrition”.

The easiest way to reach a certain goal or achieve a certain outcome is usually to get educated.

Why get educated?

The answer is simple.

There are two items that are paramount for achieving success in relieving your low back pain: having a plan and taking action.

Getting an education will give you the foundation you need to decide what your plan is going to be.

Once you have a plan, all you have to do is take action.

This is a sure-fire recipe for success.

When it comes to low back pain, education can mean a whole bunch of things.

From my experience as a physical therapist, here’s my take on the 2 most important things getting an education with respect to your low back pain will give you:

1. The problem
2. The solution

Again, it’s that simple.

If you’ve followed my posts for any amount of time, you’ll recognize that I’m a simple man that believes strongly in the basics.

This goes back to my introduction to Occam’s Razor years ago.

When dealing with low back pain, almost everything we do can be summed up in that duology: we have a problem (low back pain) and we want a solution (stop the pain).

Getting educated will help you define your problem and will help you formulate your solution: The whos, the whats, the wheres, the whens and the whys.

Getting educated will let you figure out the steps you need to create your plan and then set you up to move on to the next stage: Taking Control.

In the next post, we’ll dig a little deeper into what taking control really means.

So until that time, poke around my blog to learn all you can about the causes, sources and solutions for your low back pain.

Yours in movement,

Dev Chengkalath

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve been a little lax on getting new posts up in the last little while.

And for all of my readers out there who missed me, I apologize.

I had the opportunity to take my first vacation in a couple years  (only 5 days-which was waaaay too short!) in the warm and sunny Mayan riviera. If you get a chance to go, I highly recommend it.

Beautiful beaches, friendly people and amazing food.

I have officially decided that nothing beats fresh Mexican salsa!!!

Now that my vacation is over, I’m back…More refreshed and energized than ever.

Over the course of my trip I had a chance to chat with some pretty amazing people from all over the world.

When they found out that I was a physical therapist from Toronto who happens to do a lot of work with low back pain, the conversation would eventually turn to back injury and back pain treatments.  

As you can see, back pain is a global issue and affects people from all sorts of backgrounds.

Anyway, once we began chatting away I noticed that everything I suggested  in terms of treatment options revolved around three major ideas. In fact I repeated them so often, you might say I almost sounded like a broken record.

And here they are, borne on the sunny beaches of Xcaret, Mexico:

1. Get Educated
2. Take Control
3. Get fit

Over the next few days I’ll break each one of these down in greater detail so you too can relieve your low back pain. In the mean time, if you’re looking to see what I’ve said about the causes of low back pain before, you can check it out HERE.

Yours in movement,

Dev Chengkalath

Mornings can be a tough time for people with low back pain. 

Often, this morning stiffness can make it challenging to start your day and get the ball rolling.  

So if you find your back pain acting up in the mornings when you wake up, try this quick physical therapist approved spinal mobilization movement to get things loosened up.

Just aim for 6-10 reps and always work in a pain free range of motion. 

For a written description of the Cat and Camel exercise, check out the Exercise Video section of the blog. 

Yours in movement, 

Dev Chengkalath

I realize I left off the last post with all of you yearning for those fantastic ab wheel exercises.

I’ve been extremely busy at the clinic doing my physical therapy thing this past month and I apologize for making you wait and for the dearth in posting.

I promise I will make it up to you!

But…

Before I get into the actual exercises I just wanted to list my top 6 reasons why the ab wheel is such a versatile core training device:

1. Simple and easy to use
2. Small, lightweight and portable
3. Needs only body weight
4. Very affordable
5. Effective and efficient
6. Can be used by anyone, from beginners to professionals

So without further ado, here are a few ab wheel exercises from easiest to incredibly challenging.

1. The basic roll out: Start in a kneeling position and just roll out as far as you can from your hips keeping your back and stomach tight and braced. Don’t let your low back arch up or sink down.

2. Angled roll outs: Start in the same position as the basic roll out, however, instead of rolling straight out, angle your direction of travel.

3. Full standing roll outs: Start in a standing position with the ab wheel at your feet. Roll out as far as you can and then roll back in to the original standing position.

Give these a try but do remember to work within your limits.

While the basic roll out, done with a shorter reach, is fairly simple and straight-forward, the other variations can be extremely challenging and do carry a greater degree of risk. The farther out you take your arms, the harder this exercise will be. 

To your ab rolling.

Dev Chengkalath