I think that the whole idea of back pain stretches are  totally UNDERRATED!

I say this because I know from first hand experience I see in  private practice with many of my own patients. When I ask my patients if they do any stretches for back pain, most say they do now and then” or from “time to time”.

That’s Great.

So when I ask them to show me what back pain stretches precisely it is that they do from “time to time” or every “now and then”, the majority of their responses are not even close to what they SHOULD be doing.

I wish I could videotape some of the things that they are doing, or “attempting” to do.

From swaying back and forth, bouncing up and down, knees bent, too much stress being placed unintentionally on the already painful back and neck, not to mention how short each stretch or “whatchamacallit” is held.

On top of that, if done properly. If done effectively, learning how to go through a focused back pain stretching routine, that you can easily do in a confined space, like your office area, or better yet, a comfortable area in your home (more on that later) can be a valuable tool for reducing and eliminating your aches and pain.

Let me clarify that. IF you suffer from everyday aches and pain, you WANT to learn such a focused, easy to do, back pain stretches or stretching routine like that.

I tell my patients how important taking as little as 8-10 minutes out of their everyday schedule just to do back pain stretches, really can be. I tell them this because out of the 24 hours that that they have in a day, familiar, repetitive, and consistent stressors are placed on your body throughout the entire 24 hours.

These repetitive stressors ultimately create wear and tear on your joints.  And, If done long enough, breakdown will occur.  Worse, if the wear and tear is not addressed properly, a crisis WILL occur too. Thats why back pain stretches are so important

If this happens (and I’m talking from first hand experience myself),  A LOT of pain, suffering, and heartache will occur as well (you know what I mean, if you know what I mean). So, it is vitally important YOU, learn the proper back pain stretches

Examples of these consistent everyday stressors are things like being in the office with that chair you sit in anywhere between 5-8 hours (or longer a day, 5 days a week) with only a couple of breaks thrown in. What about your bed? Do  you sleep 100% comfortably in it all night?

Laying down relaxing on your sofa, couch, or lazy boy chair, hopefully is a comfortable and relaxing activity. IF NOT, all your daily stressors have overcome your lower back, middle, and neck’s ability to handle the positions they are put into.

When our lower back, middle back,  and neck can’t handle the positions they are in, muscles in the back contract. Again. back pain stretches can overcome this problem

Then, as the proverb goes, these daily stressors ARE  the straw that breaks the camels back.

RESULT=BREAKDOWN

So what can we do to fight back pain?

Well, try doing some back pain stretches

That’s ONLY IF you stretch the proper areas in your lower back, middle back, and necks, in the proper ways.

When I injured my own back recently, thankfully I was familiar with the proper back pain  stretches that I could do to help with my back pain.  These stretches are effective, and considered proper because they focus on addressing problems that are going on in your lower back.

Back pain Stretches Video:

The Following Video is an example of a  brief, easy to do, “focused” stretching routine for lower back pain. You can easily do these in a confined space, like your office area, or better yet, a comfortable area in your home.

Like I said earlier, stretching can be a valuable tool for reducing and eliminating your aches and pain in your neck, middle back or thoracic , and lower back.

Check it out:

 

A Couple of really important points that I want to go over when it comes to back pain stretches

With lower back pain, their are a couple of structures in your lower back that can actually cause the pain. I call it the lower back pain “triad”. If you so happen to also have pain in the neck as well as the back, you may want to check out this post I did on neck and back pain, are they related?

What exactly is back pain stretches trying to do?

1) The lumbar spine itself: The spine, has several “pain sensitive” structures in it that when irritated and/or stimulated, will cause pain.

These structures are:

a) the intervertebral disc that act as shock absorbers, and have nerves that sense excess pressure stretch/pressure to these disc especially when their is trauma, repetitive stress, really crappy postures maintained through out the entire day. The pain results when the discs have abnormal pressures.

b) the joints of the spinal column. These joints are called facet joints and look like the picture seen here. when you bend forward, they open up, and when you bend backwards they compress and come close together. Not much rotation or turning sideways can actually occur in these joints in the lumbar sine.

As well, some sideways bending can occur in these joints. Pain accompanies the disc compression mentioned above typically, as when the discs are compressed, so to are the joints, creating rubbing and grinding.

C) The muscles, tendons, ligaments, and capsule holding everything together. As you can imagine, when breakdown occurs, compression of the discs occur, compression of the facets occur, abnormal pressure follows.

Stretching of ligaments occurs also, creating muscle contractions in unequal amounts in different muscles groups from side to side happens too. Day in day out.   Pain Result. Hence, proper back pain stretches fix this hazard

All the above spinal structures that we talked about, that produce pain, can be aided with the properly guided stretches.

The last 2 additional areas that make up the back pain triad, is the pelvis/sacrum, and the hips.

1) Pelvic/Sacral dysfunction: Like the spinal column, the pelvic and a sacrum are osseous/bony structures that provide support to our erect posture, but the also must accommodate weight bearing and movement. With wear and tear, comes breakdown. Because so many of our lower extremity muscles anchor to the pelvis and sacrum, we can really address these problems with focused stretches.

2) The hip joints are weight bearing, and indirectly are affected with lower back pain. Because the hip joint also has some of the same nerve fibers going to it that exit from the spinal column, many pains are “referred” back and forth. Once again, the proper guided stretches can really help as well.

I hope you enjoyed this post on back pain strethes.

 

Till next time, I got your back.

 

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