How To Fix Lower Back Pain For Good!
In the following blog I’m going to show you my most important and critical exercises to fix lower back pain. These exercise are designed to be done after you get out of pain to ensure that this doesn’t come back again and to give yourself the best chance of fixing this for good.
If you’ve suffered with lower back pain before in the past or maybe you’re currently suffering from it, then you know just how much it can affect almost everything that you do within your day. And if you’ve suffered from it once, then you certainly don’t want to suffer from it again.
What Causes Lower Back Pain?
The cause of low back pain generally comes down to some kind of trauma. Now usually that’s physical trauma, and that’s either a macro injury or a micro injury. Macro injuries will be things such as slips or falls, car accidents. Micro injuries will be things such as postural repetitive strain type of injuries.
This causes a lack of function into the spine, which basically means that the spine develops movement patterns that start to irritate certain areas of the spine, such as the joints, the ligaments and the muscles which eventually cause injury and damage to that area. You then start to get pain in specific areas of your spine in the same way that if your car tyre is not aligned properly, then you start to get more wear and tear in certain areas of that tyre.
A similar thing happens within the spine. You need proper movement and function within the spine to ensure that the pressure is being dissipated evenly so that it’s not all being focused onto one point.
The Core
A vital part of spinal function is how well the muscles that surround your spine are working. Your core is your first line of defence, and any twists, turns or jolts that go through your spine, requires your core to react fast enough and adequately enough to protect your spine from further damage, particularly if you’ve had a previous injury to your spine.
Therefore, in most cases, there are two main things you need to do to fix lower back pain: The first thing you need to do is to ensure that you get yourself checked by a chiropractor or someone that can check your spine specifically for proper motion and function within your spine to ensure that you’re not further damaging the spine every time you move it. The second thing you need to do is to ensure that the muscles surrounding your spine, your core muscles, are working to their very best functionally. Your core needs to work adequately enough to be able to protect you against trauma in the future.
There is a substantial amount of evidence of comparisons between those that have suffered with lower back pain and those that don’t in the way that they contract and activate their core muscles. It tends to be that those that have lower back issues tend to activate these muscles a lot slower, and they tend to be a lot weaker than those who have not suffered with back pain in the past.
How To Fix Lower Back Pain - The Core
So what’s the best way to train the core? Well the worst way to train your core is to do sit ups because what you’re doing is you’re flexing your spine repetitively under load for a long periods of time. This is a very unnatural thing to do with your spine because we don’t usually use the core muscles very much to flex your spine. You use your core muscles more to keep your spine level, straight and stable.
And so the exercises that I’m going to go through are going to be isometric exercises (i.e. exercises where the spine stays neutral). Just make sure before doing these exercises that you’re not currently in pain. This is something to do when you’re out of pain to bring back the function of your core muscles and prevent further episodes into the future.
The Bird Dog
The First exercise is called a bird dog. This is one of my favourite exercises because it strengthens the core in a way that puts the least amount of pressure and stress through your spine. So particularly if you’ve just recovered from lower back pain, this is a good one to start with. Below I have described this exercise, however you may find it easier to watch the video above to see me demonstrating these.
So what you’re going to do is go onto your all fours so your hands and knees are on the floor and get yourself in a 90/90 position. So you got 90 degrees with your shoulders and 90 degrees with your hips.
The 5 Stages
There are many stages to this exercise, so we can make it as hard as we like. For the first stage, bring one leg up into the air and then slowly bring it back. I want to stress the slowness of this exercise because the slower that you do this, the more you’ll get out of it, and the more that your core needs to activate and work hard. If you do this fast, you’re not going to get the best results.
The fact that I’m bringing my leg up is not the focus of the exercise. The focus is to keep the spine level as the leg comes up because the leg would naturally rotate my spine if my core is not activating properly. So what I would suggest to ensure that you’re not twisting (sometimes you can be twisting slightly without even noticing it) is to place a ball on your lower back so that if you are twisting, that ball will simply fall off and you’ll know about it. Once you’ve really mastered this exercise, then you don’t necessarily need to use the ball. Once you’ve done the one side, then you can switch and do the other side. Repeat 5-10 times on each side and that’s the first stage of this exercise.
The second stage to make it a little bit harder, as you can do exactly the same thing with your leg but now you’re going to move the opposite arm at the same time. Bring it up nice and slow and then hold for a couple of seconds at the top and then really slowly down, particularly on the down.
Then to make it even harder you can bring your hands and knees closer together for the third stage. This is going to bring in your centre of gravity closer and make it harder for you to balance.
For the fourth stage, you can do one side at a time before moving on to the other side. So you would do your five or ten reps on one side all at once and then you switch over to the other side. This will give your core muscles more fatigue and stress them more on that side.
The fifth stage and final stage is to close your eyes. This is going to make it harder for you to balance and therefore your core muscles will have to work even harder. And the great thing about this part is that once you close your eyes, you’re relying on the proprioception from your muscles ands thus training it in a slightly different way.
The Dead Bug
The second exercise is actually a very similar exercise, but you’re now doing it on your back, so it’s kind of in the reverse. We call this the dead bug because you’re in the dead bug position.
The dead bug starts on your back with your knees and shoulders again into a 90-90 position but now they’re facing up into the air. Your shin should be parallel with the roof and your hand should be pointing straight up to the ceiling.
Once you’re in this position, bring one leg and the opposite arm down to the floor. Don’t go all the way as you want to leave a slight gap, so you’re still activating muscles to maintain the position of your arm and your leg. Hold for a couple of seconds and then slowly bring it up again. With this exercise, you want to be going as slow as you can. Once you’ve done that, then you can switch over onto the other side.
This could be a good alternative if you have any knee issues or for whatever reason you’re struggling to be in the hands and knees position. Just make sure that with all these exercises, if you get any pain at any point, then stop or at least reduce the amount that you’re doing. These aren’t exercises that you want to get through the pain with. The muscle fatigue and DOMS feeling after the exercise which is expected.
The Plank
The third exercise is going to be the plank. This exercise is good to do after you’ve mastered the bird dog and/ or dead bug. This is due to more pressure being put through the spine with this exercise compared with the first two. Most people usually know how to do this. This exercise starts on your elbows and your toes. Put yourself in a neutral straight position so that your pelvis is not too far down to the floor and not too high. You might want to get someone to watch you when you do this so that you can get into a good position. Then you just hold that position as long as you can.
Now there is research to show that those that can’t do a plank for at least 60 seconds are at a higher risk of developing lower back pain into the future. So if you can’t currently do 60 seconds, then it’s vital that you train yourself to at least be able to do 60 seconds, but hopefully more.
There are a couple of ways to make this harder that I quite like, particularly to train your oblique muscles within your core. When you’re in the plank position, take one hand off and put it by your side. This is harder than it looks because what you can easily end up doing is twisting. Therefore to avoid this happening, you need to activate your core. You have to really activate your core before taking your hand off so that as soon as you do, there is no movement within your spine. This is a very good way to advance the plank and make your core the very best that it can be. When the hand is off, I would hold for around five to 10 seconds and then slowly bring it back to the starting position. You can then do the same thing with the other side.
Another thing you can do is you can roll onto your side, which will then allow you to train the lateral portion of your core muscles. Again, you would hold this for 30 to 60 seconds and then you can turn back to the starting position. You can then you can do the same thing on the other side. Just make sure again, when you’re turning to the side position that your spine stays absolutely straight.
So these are my three favourite exercises for the core. In this video above, I also go through exercises for the glute muscles. The glutes are also very important for the proper function of your spine and to prevent injury. Scroll up or click here to see the video.
If you are suffering with lower back pain that isn’t resolving, there’s a good chance there’s an underlining issue that needs sorting. Please get in contact as this is something we deal with on a daily basis.
- lower back pain
- how to fix lower back pain
- exercises
- core
- core muscles
- low back pain
- bird dog
- dead bug
- planks
- chiropractic
- dr steven hulme