Back Pain Glossary
I just realized as I started writing a few days ago, that many times people find it a little changing to follow the terminology I use when talking about back pain and the body. So, I decided to put together this short glossary of essential terms:
- Muscle Imbalance: For every muscle in the body, there is a counter muscle that performs the opposite function. This helps our bodies to stay upright, protect our joints, and provide stability. When muscles become imbalanced, it causes postural dysfunction and can be a major cause of back pain.
- “Chronic” Back Pain: This usually refers to back pain that persists over a period of time. Some consider pain to be chronic after 3 months.
- Pelvis: The pelvis includes the 2 bowl-like bones that connect to the sacrum, which is at the bottom of the spine.
- Anterior Pelvic Tilt: Anterior refers to the front of the body. If you imagine the pelvis as a bucket of water, anterior pelvic tilt would be when the bucket tips and pours water onto your toes. There is a normal amount of pelvic tilt in both women and men.
- Posterior Pelvic Tilt: Posterior refers to the backside of the body. If we use the analogy of the bucket of water as with the anterior pelvic tilt, then posterior pelvic tilt would be when the bucket of water tips backward and pours water down the back on your legs and heels.
- Sciatica: This commonly mis-diagnosed condition, is when the sciatic nerve is entrapped by either dysfunction in the spine, or by muscles through or around which the nerve passes.
- Spinal Stenosis: This is a condition where the spinal canal gets smaller and compresses the spinal cord and/or nerves exiting the spine. This can happen on either one or both sides.
- Disc Bulge/Herniation: This is a condition in which there is a tear in the outer layer of a spinal disc. Discs can create pressure on spinal nerves, thus causing radiating pain.
What are the causes of Back Pain?
While it is extremely difficult to determine EXACTLY what causes back pain, particularly in the chronic form, there are many known contributing factors. I will add these one by one and discuss them.
Poor Posture
This commonly overlooked factor is one of the major contributors to long term destruction of the body. That unavoidable force, called gravity, is weighing down on all of us all day, everyday. Our bodies were meant to absorb the majority of this weight, by design. However, when that design is altered by poor lifestyle habits, then our joints and muscles begin to take on a tremendous amount of additional work.
As these overworked muscles fatigue, develop adhesions, and maintain excessive tension, blood flow reduces, therefore causing them to ache, and reduce the amount of stability and support to our backs as they once did.
Now, every muscle has an opposing muscle that performs the opposite motion. For instance, in the case of your arm, your bicep muscle flexes your arm, while your tricep extends your arm. While one muscle is doing work, the opposing muscle must relax.
This is important to understand, because it means that if chronic overuse and dysfunction develops in the bicep muscle, it will directly affect the function of the tricep. As the bicep muscle begins to shorten and tighten, the tricep muscle will not be able to adequately perform its job. This leaves both your elbow and shoulder open to injury!
The name of this type of situation is called a MUSCLE IMBALANCE (remember this term!)
Poor posture is generally recognized as a potential cause of lower back pain, but I find it interesting that not many health care practitioners focus on it as a means to eliminate back pain. To be honest, that sort of pisses me off, especially considering that you will find this information in ANY physical therapy book you pick up!
So…How do you FIX poor posture?
Well, frankly its easier said than done! Some aspects of posture are conscious, meaning that if you focus on them, you can improve them, and others are more unconscious.
Lets start with the most common 3 postural cues that will help reduce back stress:
- Keep your knees slightly bent: this not only takes the pressure out of your knees, but also out of your lower back, and puts it into your muscles.
- Lift your chest up and pull your shoulders back and down: this cue will help strengthen the muscles between your shoulder blades, your upper back, and MASSIVELY reduce stress and pain in your neck.
- Retract your head: this means try to lengthen your neck by bringing your chin toward your neck. This motion will actually help to correct imbalances throughout your entire body, especially when combined with #1 and #2.
That’s it for now!
Sam–
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