“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