You ask and you shall receive…

From my experiences as a physiotherapist in Toronto, these are the top 5 things you do to your back that you should not do:

1. Abuse it: This is probably the most simple item on the list. Almost every one of my physical therapy clients, with a little bit of prodding, can tell me exactly what activity causes them back pain.

Yet they keep doing it.

If something hurts, stop doing it.

This likely leads to low back pain...

This includes exercises. Or body contortions as pictured above.

In most cases, pain is a signal from your body that something isn’t right. Usually it means that some sort of tissue is being damaged.

2. Prolonged Postures: The big culprit here is sitting. How many of you spend more than 15 minutes in the exact same position? How many of you spend an hour in the exact same position?

I’m willing to bet that there are quite a few of you who spend your days driving in a car, commuting, riding in airplanes, and more specifically sitting at a desk in front of a computer (usually for HOURS on end!).

Slouched Sitting Postures: Over time can lead to injury.

Then you get home and crash on the couch in front of the TV, or worse, lie down in bed in awkward postures, twisting your body to get a good view of the screen while “relaxing”.

By maintaining these postures for longer periods of time, you don’t let the tissues recover from the stresses that they face.

Think of this like an elastic band that you stretch and hold. Eventually, when you let go, it won’t spring back to the original length. The same thing happens to your body tissues.

As stated previously, the best postures are the ones that keep changing.

3. Repetitive Motions: Similar to prolonged postures, numerous repetitive motions have been shown to be the major factor in disc herniations with full lumbar flexion (rounding of the low back) being the major player.

What exactly are repetitive motions?

Think about bending a paperclip back and forth over and over again. Eventually, the paperclip will break.

To get an idea of some of the repetitive motions that we use regularly, just have a look at the previous post where I discussed the 3 worst core exercises for people with low back pain. Each of those exercises puts the lumbar spine through those exact repeating movements (flexion, extension or rotation) that can potentially lead to intervertebral disc injuries such as bulges.

4. Neglect it: According to Dr. Stuart McGill, and the study he cites by Luoto et al (1995), low back muscular endurance appears to have a greater protective effect against low back injury than does low back strength.

Ergo, make sure you work on your muscular endurance using exercises such as the Birddog and plank variations.

McGill also suggests that lower back exercises seem to have their greatest positive effect when executed daily, and not 2 or 3 times as week as most exercise sessions are set up.

So don’t neglect your back!

5. Ignore it: This is the most surprising item on the list, but the longer I’m in clinical practice the more often I see this.

People will live with their back pain for years without doing anything about it.

Or worse yet, they will ignore it and work through it. Sometimes they will even wait patiently for the latest excruciating episode to clear up. There are people out there who can help you.

Find them and let them help you fix yourself.

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath