Back Pain Should not Rule Your Life
Back pain can come on suddenly “with a drop of a hat” literally. You might be fifty years old and have never had a back issue before and “boom” you are on the ground unable to move following moving the “wrong way”. Additionally perhaps you have had back pain forever and it is just something which you “live with” rendering you unable to pick up your kids, workout, or do other activities without fear of debilitating pain down your spine which sometimes radiates to other parts of your body through the neural pathways.
In my personal training career I have dealt with myself & many clients who struggle with herniated disks, bulging disks, back spasms and even broken disks. Many times a health professional will tell you that you are unable to lift a certain amount of weight or do certain activities. While good intentioned I believe many times the liability is what they are scared of and also they don’t have a professional to refer people to get them real help. They are correct however knowing that you must do things the right way in the gym if you are going to return to your former self while avoiding the dreaded “going under the knife”. Here is where you need to do your due diligence and find a fitness professional who has dealt with lower back issues with clients or potentially (like myself) have worked through back injuries personally. I experienced back trauma while playing varsity football fielding an onside kick collision which caused L3 and L4 to suffer trauma and lead to a degenerative issue known as “spondylosis” keeping me bent over at a forty-five degree angle. Fortunately for me; my doctor was a sports orthopedic surgeon and he told me to avoid a potential life in a wheelchair I would need to commit to working out most days the rest of my life. That is what I did. I spent the next eighteen months doing physical therapy then returned to the gym to continue my journey. Believe me; it wasn’t easy but it was worth it!
So that is the good news! If your fitness and lifestyle activities have suffered due to lower back pain or instability; there is hope and there is help available.
Some beginner tips would be to:
- Start Slowly with weight training.
- Learn how to properly foam roll.
- Learn how to properly stretch.
- Do cardiovascular activities which are comfortable first and progress from there.
- Don’t assume results will be in a linear upward improvement. Expect setbacks along the way. (Like the stock market)
A few things to keep in mind; as you start your journey to improved back mobility, strength, flexibility and pain response; you will want to start slow. Depending on your age and how long you have dealt with the issue you will need to undo all of the compounding issues which come over time through lack of movement and lack of addressing the issue. For some it may take three or four months to find relief (I see this primarily with athletes and military) or three to four years (I see this primarily with sedentary older people). The point is not to remove back pain from the scenario; quite the contrary; it is to learn to live with the pain when it comes; which it will.
So you mean to tell me I may have back pain forever!!? Potentially. However what I have found is the amount of time between flare ups is greatly reduced and eventually becomes a non issue if (and only if) you do things the correct way.
Is surgery sometimes the answer? Yes! I wont tell you otherwise. What I will say is that it should never be your first choice!
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
