Another 5 Tips to Cure Your Back Pain

“Back
pain?  Never heard of it!” – said no one
ever.

As
I mentioned in my first post about back pain, almost everyone will suffer from
it at some point in their life.  For this
reason, I’ve decided to post another 5 tips that could help if you’re suffering.  (In fact, if you said I’m a back pain junkie,
you’d probably be right). 

So,
once again, below are some tips that hopefully can help decrease your back
pain, complete with the science that may put you to sleep.  Also, if you’d like to take a look at my
first post on this subject, you can do so by clicking here.

• Change
  your sitting position every 10 minutes – Contrary to what you may think, there’s
  actually no ideal way to sit in a chair. 
  I touched on this fact in my last post about back pain, but wanted to
  expand on it a bit here.  When you sit in
  one position for too long (think of yourself as being hunched over at a
  computer) you accumulate microtrauma in your tissues.  This microtrauma can then increase your risk
  of other problems, including soft tissue creep (another way of saying your on
  your way to a herniated disc).  As Dr.
  Stuart McGill has pointed out, if you need to sit, change your sitting posture
  every 10 minutes, so the loads on your tissues can be varied.

• Side
  sleeper?  Put something between your
  knees – This tip may be more applicable for women due to the increased Q angle
  (a special way of saying women have wider hips that alter the angle of their
  femurs to their knees), but it’s good to try if you suffer from back pain.  If you’re a side sleeper, your top leg will
  be in adduction, which is often associated with lateral pelvic tilt.  Why’s that a problem? Imagine your lumbar spine
  being bent towards one side for hours on end while you sleep, and suddenly it
  makes sense why your back may not be feeling great. If you’re going to continue
  sleeping on your side, try putting a pillow between your legs, which should
  decrease your hip adduction and the tilt on your spine.

• Stop
  crossing your legs – Once again, this may be more applicable to women, but if
  you sit with your legs crossed, please stop. 
  You are placing shear forces on your SI joint, not to mention you
  probably put yourself in lateral flexion. 
  Neither scenario is what you’ll want if you have a cranky back.  Plus, I’m far from being a member of high society,
  but it seems as if sitting with your ankles together may be more polite.

• If
  it hurts your back, don’t do it – This saying is a take on one of the more
  popular ones from Mike Boyle, and in my opinion, is simple and brilliant.  I can’t tell you how many people will perform
  a specific exercise, only to be in pain while doing it, or in pain the next
  day. Just last week I had someone tell me their lower back was hurting them
  during a trap bar deadlift.  After a few
  minutes, I come to find out that it hurts them every single time they do it,
  they just failed to tell anyone! 

  On
  this note, if you’ve had a bad experience with a certain movement or exercise,
  don’t try it even if your back is starting to feel better.  Why? 
  Think of that movement as picking a scab.  Once you pick that scab, you may have to wait
  even longer for it to heal correctly.  Safe
  to say, if something hurts your back, just don’t do it.

• Don’t
  pick things up with a rounded back – “Don’t lift with your back, lift you’re
  your legs.”  Well, technically, that’s not correct advice, as lifting something off the ground will always require some back
  bracing or movement, but what we want to avoid is having your back rounded, or in lumbar
  flexion.  Why?  Well, besides looking gross, there’s actually
  a reason!  Two muscles, your iliocostalis
  and longissimus are located along your spine in your upper and lower back.  In your lower back, these two muscles have an
  amazing ability to keep your spine tight and correct as it corresponds
  to their line of pull.  However, when you
  hunch your lower back, these two muscles lose this line of pull, and you
  essentially have very little preventing one of your discs from poking out.

​