There are two main things that cause lower back pain:
1. Poor Posture
The majority of people are spending most of their days sitting with poor posture that adds stress to the discs and joints on the spines. The main issue is how slumped people are most of the time. For example, when we get up first thing in the morning we bend over to dry ourselves after being in the shower, we then bend over again to put on socks and shoes. We go to work where we might be constantly bending over to pick items up or sit in the chair all day. At the end of the day, we go home and spend a lot of time sitting to eat dinner and watch TV on the couch. The combination of this amount of poor posture leads to abnormal stresses on the structures of our spine and leads to lower back pain. Changing these posture stresses is a key factor in preventing back pain.
If your work involves you sitting at a workstation or a desk all day, one of the things that you can do is to set up both yourself and your workstation to minimise the abnormal stresses. Make sure you have an ergonomic chair that is at the right height so that your knees are a little below your hips and your hands are a bit below your elbows on the keyboard. Also, make sure that you set up your computer screen so that the top of the screen is at eye level
2. Repetitive Bending
The second factor that is a common cause of lower back pain is repetitive bending activities; when we bend a lot especially lifting and then combine this with being slouched throughout our day, we add a lot of stress to the structures of our spine. To change this, make sure that you keep your back in the neutral position whilst you bend, using the bend in your knees and hips to take the load away from your back. Also spend a little time regularly during the day doing exercises where you’re arching backward and taking the pressure off of the forward bending structures in the lumbar spine.
Your physio can help you with all of these strategies by showing you exactly how to move and making sure that any exercises that you perform are specific to your body.
physios can also help those that have long-term issues by developing exercise programmes that help to stretch as well as strengthen the muscles and tissues around the spine to make them more protective and less likely to be injured.
If you’re experiencing any lower back pain, give one of your local Core Physio & Pilates Studio clinics a call and make a time to see one of the physios. They’ll be able to provide more advice as to how you can manage your lower back pain.