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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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–