Break Free From Back Pain

This is a fundamentally important question when considering a “healthy” spine or body.

In the Western World health care is concerned mainly with getting you painfree, and unfortunately in general only lip service is paid to the preventative side of therapy. The commonest way of doing this is with medication until the pain goes, then you are healthy! This is fundamentally wrong and short-sighted.

Health is NOT an absence of symptoms, health is good function, everything working correctly, in a good environment, efficiently. Just focusing on being painfree will not result in good health.

In modern times we are all (well most of us) leading very busy lives, we are having to work harder, for longer, many of us travel ever increasing distances to work. We are under more pressure due to the cost of living, we have less time for ….

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Here Is A Daily Stretch That Will Help You Stay Free Of Upper Back Pain And Neck Pain.

This exercise is called the Wall Angel, you start by standing about 6 inches from a clear wall, sit onto the wall so your lower back is comfortable. Then tense the deep neck flexors as you did with the Bruger’s postural relief. Now raise your arms up with the elbows at shoulder height and bent at 90 degrees.

Start position for Wall Angel Exercise

Here’s the side view:

Note the chin is tucked in

You should aim to get the elbows back to the wall and the hands flat to the wall WITHOUT letting your body arch like this:

This is wrong, back is arched too much

Now if you have a tight upper back and shoulders you won’t be able to get flat without the back arching. So you need to gently tense the stomach muscles to make your spine rigid, then just take the elbows back until you feel a stretch. Refer to do’s and don’ts of stretching for more tips before doing this. Remember this should not cause pain. If it does, go back to the previous exercise Bruger’s Relief Position.

Now you should be comfortable, back stiff and relatively flat to the wall, your arms will be somewhere between being on the wall or a long way forward. Now you need to lower the arms to your sides keeping the elbows bent at 90 degrees. As you do so you will feel a stretch on the front of the chest and tension between the shoulder blades on the Rhomboid muscles.

Note the elbows stay bent at right angles

If you have tight shoulders you will feel the hands lift away from the wall. This is fine, the trick now is to keep the spine still, so make sure you maintain tension in the abdominal muscles. As long as you feel some stretch on the front of the chest that is fine.

Note back is still flat against the wall

This shows the wrong way to do it:

Back over-extended, less specific for shoulder

OK, now you should be getting an idea that this is all about control, you really need to focus on the only movement occuring at the shoulder. Got that? Good.

Now you simply bring the elbows back up level with the shoulders, pause for a second or two and repeat about 15-20 times. Always remember quality is more important than quantity and if it hurts you stop straight away.

Within a few weeks you’ll feel alot more freedom in the shoulders.

All the best for now

Steve Oldale BSc, DC                        Chiropractor                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Back In Form Chiropractic Clinic                                                                                                                                                                                                         65-67 Commercial Rd                                                                                              Poole                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   BH14 0JB

Upper Back And Neck Postural Relief Exercise

This simple yet powerful exercise will help reduce the tension that commonly builds up in the shoulders and upper back when sat at a desk, or driving.

When we sit at a desk for prolonged periods we tend to let our heads move forwards, our upper back becomes rounded, the chin pokes out and our lower backs slump. This causes stress and deformation of the ligaments and joints and leads to pain. If it goes on for 30 years there could be obvious postural changes.

Here’s a simple exercise to help:

This exercise is called the Bruger’s postural relief, after Mr Bruger who first developed and recorded it.

First stand up tall, look straight ahead, and then retract your head so that it stays level. Try doing this in a mirror as you should still be looking straight at yourself. If you are doing this correctly you’ll feel tension under the jaw, you’ll have a double chin and if you talk you’ll sound a bit nerdy. See photo for poor posture and correct posture.

Typical slumped Upper Back Posture

Backing away from your hand can help achieve correct posture

It’s Time To Stretch

Now reach up with your arms going in front of you, not to the side. Reach as high as you can with one arm and hold it there, then do the same with the other and alternate until they won’t go any further. This releases tension in the upper back and mobilises the upper thoracic spine.

Reaching Up And Mobilising The Upper Back

Now lower the arms in front of you and rotate the shoulders outwards, then extend the wrists. This stretches the chest muscles, strengthens the upper back muscles and mobilises the nerves into the hand.

Arms are rotated back and hands extended

Note the shoulders are not pulled back, but only rotated

This will help to reduce the effects of creep on the spine, for a full guide on causes of back pain look at our website www.backinform.co.uk 

Active Stretches. 

Before exercise do what is known as an active stretch. That is swing the limb in an arc that replicates the movements you will be doing, don’t do what is known as a passive stretch ie stretch and hold. 

An active stretch wakes the muscle up, stimulates blood flow and heightens your body awareness for that area. A passive stretch reduces your body’s awareness as already mentioned. (See previous blog).

Make sure that you don’t overdo the stretch, let the limb limber up at it’s own pace, do some gentle exercise in the sport or activity that you plan to do and combine it with the active stretch. For example if you are going to swim, swing the arms forwards and back in an ever increasing arc, then also pull the arms back tightening between the shoulders and reverse across the chest.

 When doing an active or passive stretch try not to stretch the spine or neck too much.

Passive Stretching. 

Passive stretching is used after exercise when you are cooling down, then you can gently stretch and hold. The aim of this is to maintain muscle length, but again don’t get carried away with trying to achieve the flexibility of a gymnast, if you overdo it you can tear weakened muscles and as mentioned before the longer the muscle the less feedback you’ll have from it unless you train your proprioception (balance sense).

Suggested Order Of Exercise.

 This should be the program for your exercise;

• Firstly picture yourself doing the exercise, this primes your nervous system.
• Secondly do the active stretches in combination with a warm up, then go for it, within your limits, making sure that you have good form and are in control of your exercise.
• If you feel that you are losing control, e.g. dropping a hip or getting tired, then stop for a while try again until your form goes and repeat, if you can’t maintain the good form then stop.
• It really isn’t good to be jogging when you can barely raise your feet off the ground, you’d be better off walking, and your shoes will last longer!!!
• Do your warm down then gentle passive stretches.
•  Try to focus on the limb so that most of the movement comes from there. I’ll explain why on a later update.

For example, to stretch the Hamstrings keep the low back locked out hollow, never bend from the waist to touch toes, it will weaken your lower back and could even cause a disc prolapse.

 You can either put your leg up on a low stool or step and bend forwards from the hips keeping the low back straight or you can do the Cossack as I call it.  Leg stretched out straight, low back locked out straight and lower your body by bending the other knee that supports your weight, keep the knee out don’t let it buckle in. It’s a good idea to hold on to something for additional support if you are a little unsteady.

 As this blog develops it will gradually build into a volume that has many more specific exercises and stretches in it. Stay tuned for the next one it won’t be long. I’ll be adding photo’s and video soon.

So you now know that it is not going to be easy to achieve fitness while staying free from back pain, if you follow the tips that I give to you, you will be in a much better informed position to get the best from your sports training or back pain rehabilition and achieve the results you want and you will also be less likely to need back pain treatment. 

Its Not As Simple As Just Stretching..

So the first big mistake you are likely to make or be told to do is stretch before exercise. Stretching has it’s place but it needs to be the correct type at the correct time, done correctly. In order to understand why it can be done wrong you need a quick lesson on how the nervous system controls muscles. 

The Incredible You.. 

Your body is covered in sensors that detect the position of a joint, the tension on a muscle, the pressure on a surface. These mechano-receptors constantly send information to the spinal cord through fast acting nerve fibres. After all these are the balance or Proprioceptive nerves if they were slow we’d all be on the floor.

If you don’t have these fibres you’d literally be totally unaware that you had a body unless you looked at it!!! The result, your limbs would wander around all over the place seemingly with a mind of their own. 

Within muscles you have stretch receptors called muscle spindles, within tendons you have others called golgi tendon organs (sounds like something from a B movie). These detect the power and length of a muscle contraction or stretch.

Why Some Stretches Are Bad..

If you stretch the muscle and hold that stretch before exercise you will lengthen the muscle and tendon. The result is that during exercise, the muscle spindles and tendon organs will have to be stretched even further before they detect the increased length of your muscle. The result, you have less feedback, less control, you won’t react as well to overstrains and are more likely to hurt yourself.

Also, tendons and muscles are elastic, if they are stretched they will rebound, if they are overstretched this rebound will reduce. So consider what happens when you run. As your foot hits the floor and your leg extends, the ankle is flexed and the calf stretched, if the muscle is still tight then it will give you some passive spring, if it is overstretched there will be less spring and the muscle will have to contract harder to give you the push off. The result is at best reduced performance, at worst a torn calf due to overstretch and strain.

Why You Shouldn’t Worry Too Much About That Tight Muscle..

So if you have a tight muscle before exercise, don’t try to stretch it out, it is probably tight for a reason, that could be because the muscle is trying to stabilise a joint, stretch the muscle and you make the joint less stable, warm it up, prime it for action and you’ll loosen the muscle while maintaining the stabilising effect. 

So how do you stretch before exercise and stabilise joints and increase athletic performance? More of that on the next entry..

It’s a new year again, traditionally the time of year when we look at our waist-lines and think of all those mince pies we should’ve left alone. Maybe you will start a detox diet, or perhaps this year it will be the  start of a gym membership.

 Fundamentals Of Any Exercise Program

If you have good intentions along these lines then this is the first instalment of a guide to exercising again after a long lay off. If you’ve already been a gym member then this information is still vital to make sure that you are doing things correctly. 

Three Paths To Chose.

So firstly you have 3 options in staying free of back pain or reducing your chances of sports injuries.

1. Firstly don’t do anything!!!! Great say those of you who really weren’t up for it, so where will this lead you? Well if your joints aren’t getting used and the muscles weaken you will almost certainly get degeneration and arthritis, I’ll touch on this further at a later date. 
2. So you’ll have to chose another option: Go to the gym and train hard, no pain no gain that must be the way to go!! As you have probably guessed that is not the right option either. Over straining and over training joints and muscles causes damage and can lead to poor movement patterns that lay the foundations for further injuries, this leads to…..You guessed it…Arthritis. 
3. So there is only one option left: this is the road less travelled it involves exercise that is done in a controlled way, step by step, that replicates the correct movements and reduces stress on joints and ligaments while also still training the muscles to be strong but to maintain good stable healthy joints. 

 Functional Training Exercises

You have a functional range, it may be big allowing you to do alot of training before you get past the threshold for injury or it may be small meaning even slightly out of the ordinary tasks can trigger pain. The important thing is that you must train up to, but not beyond that threshold. Stay at that threshold until you feel your form fading, then rest or change activity. Gardually as your stamina improves, your functional range will improve.

I’ll discuss how to find your range and how to build up exercises and in what order later in the program.

If you have a problem now, training will result in further injury, it will re-inforce poor movements and help to bed in your area of weakness. So you must address the problem, but don’t just focus on the pain, make sure you are working correctly too. Again more on that soon…

Get The Balance Right

If you are pain free, you may still have poor movements and when you start to train harder you’ll get an injury. So the vital thing is to get good movement patterns before you start to apply loads. In other words get the balance of the muscles right first and the range of movement of the joints balanced.

If you’d like to know more on how to do this, sign up or click the RSS feed logo and you’ll be notified of updates..The next update will be with you soon hopefully before you get in the bad habits at the gym.