The END of Back Pain?

There is a connective web of tissue that runs through your entire body. It's what gives you shape or form, holds your organs in place, and even affects joint position and pressure on muscles, tendons, ligaments, capsules, and so on. In your whole body, you get about 2.5cm of slack, which means that when the slack is taken up (which commonly is the case when people have back pain, are age 40 or older, or have gone through significant physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual trauma in their lives), you can no longer heal the way you once could. Restore myofascial slack and get the feeling of youth back!

We tend to think about posture as how straight we stand up, although it's much more... there is also sitting posture, walking posture, and even sleep posture. Dynamic posture, however, is perhaps the most relevant when it comes to back pain. Why, you might be wondering? Because dynamic posture is posture while moving, which means that with every step you take you either place healthy or unhealthy pressure on joints. If, for example, you have improper footwear, then every step you take will cause you to place 90-95% of the impact of walking (equates to thousands of pounds of pressure or more) into the low spine. And that's with every 'walking' step you take; running is exponentially more pressure and stress to the spine if dynamic/movement-based posture is off. The field of posture with movement is called biomechanics and it's one of the main areas of study for Physical Therapists. Improve your biomechanics -- or dynamic posture -- and you'll get out of pain.

When it comes to rehabilitation, there is a "healthy" amount of pain you can be in. In other words, there is a certain amount of inflammation that is considered healing and productive, while too much or too little is counterproductive. The pain scale comes down to a question you can ask yourself on a regular basis, before your routine, and after your get-out-of-pain routine. Here is the question:

• On a scale of 0 to 10, where:
• 0 = no pain whatsoever and
• 10 = emergency level pain, how much pain are you in right now?

Generally speaking, up to a 3 out of 10 means that you are not getting inflamed. This is good for joint pain on the inside or chronic inflammatory issues. Between a 5- 7 out of 10 is generally best for strength training and muscle soreness to follow.

So, gauge what type of activity you are doing and then choose the appropriate range of pain/discomfort to follow. If you're strength training under a 5-7 out of 10 soreness, you could probably grow muscle more quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, if you're doing myofascial release work, stretching, or cardiovascular exercise, anything above a 3 out of 10 is too much.

Increasing capsular mobility, or the "balloon" that connects the two bones that make up any joint, is completely different from "stretching". "Stretching" is done to increase muscle length. Mobilization -- or joint mobilization -- is done to increase capsular mobility, or the room that bones have to move and glide upon one another. If your shoulder capsule is tight for example, then you will inevitably have forward shoulder posture, which rounds the mid-back and causes the low back and neck to flatten. This postural deviation is common, especially with people who sit for a living. Mobilize a joint (through myofascial release or self-mobilization) to restore a more natural range of motion, so moving no longer leads to inflammation.

The body is like a balance scale, except instead of one direction of teetering for the balance scale (i.e. left right or forward backwards), it's all directions of teetering to balance one body part to the next. This means you are healthiest when you are balanced -- or aligned -- right to left, top to bottom, front to back, and around in every possible direction and diagonal. How?? It's simple. Your body is already designed this way; it's how you were made. All you have to do is start with symmetry, meaning if one side is restricted, go easier on the other side. If one arm is weaker, lift lighter weights in the stronger arm. If one side is pain free, make sure the other side is pain free before progressing. When you turn to the right while sitting, make sure you turn the same distance to the left. Instead of asking for more umph where it doesn't exist, cater to the more limited or weaker side and your body will naturally align.

If I say to you: "bend over and touch your toes" and then I ask 9 other people in line to do the same, do you think you will all move the same way? Or do you think some of you might bend at the waist, some through your spine and some through your knees & ankles? Well, the answer is that without specific instruction on how to move, each of you will more than likely move a bit differently than one another.

Now, what happens if I say to you: "Tuck your tummy, squeeze your buttocks, and make sure your core is on such that your spine does not round when you bend over. Now, bend over and touch your toes."?

Well, for starters, if you get up and try this right now, you'll immediately realize how much harder it is to touch your toes and how much more stretch you feel in the back of your legs. Secondly, you will have normalized movement, meaning we now know which muscles & tissues we are asking to dynamically lengthen, so you'll get the proper stretch to your hamstrings rather than strain your low back. It's a huge difference... because bending over to pick up a pencil with a rounded back places about 220 pounds of pressure into your low spine. However, bending over with a flat back -- or through your knees to pick up that pencil -- only places a few pounds of pressure in your low spine. What a difference!

Control movement to re-organize your nervous system, build symmetry, and only place stress on muscles, tissues, and joints that are meant to take it. Re-learn how to move, one segment at a time, and then two or three together. Practice basic movements like getting out of bed, sitting to standing, and standing to walking. Visualize movement with your eyes closed and all five senses; then, get up and do it. Try something faster or slower, such as a squat, press, or twist.