Today, a majority of people have experienced some kind of lower back pain. Acute, chronic, local or pain that is going all through your glutes’ muscles and legs to your foot.
All of them are very intensive and they limit us in our everyday life. So, what causes it, why and how should you solve lower back pain?
- Everything is connected
First of all, we have to understand that lower back pain syndrome is not the question of the lower back itself. The human body is a machine designed for moving. From the early steps on all four until today’s bipedal movement, we are interacting with our surroundings by moving.
We all know that the human body adapts. The thing is, in today’s modern society, we are adopting wrong postural patterns and by that, in most cases, we are developing different pain syndromes.
Rounded shoulders, different extensive pelvic tilts, tight or uneven hips are just sea drops in the ocean of different postural problems. Take the rounded shoulders as an example. In this case, our pectoralis muscles are overactive and upper back muscles are weak and unresponsive. If our shoulders are rounded, neck and our head are also in a bad postural position too.
If I continue the story, we will come to the ankle or toe. Now compare this to your posture while you are sitting on a desk. Pretty similar, isn’t it? Bad posture is a response to an input you are giving to your body every day. The body adopts, don’t forget.
- Shortening and extending of muscles
Shortening or contracting a muscle is only one part of the loop. The opposite reaction, extending the muscle is another. Both of them must be done in a proper way for a pain-free movement. If our muscles are too tight it cannot extend to an optimal length. If it is not on an optimal length, it cannot contract regularly.
Simple as that. After a while, your body will react and try to achieve some kind of compensation, but in every compensation, there is a price you have to pay. In terms of muscles that contract in the wrong way, it is pain.
- Lower back pain syndrome
How does a lower back pain syndrome fit into the story of tight or overextended muscles or into the story about body compensation mechanics? As a specie, at some point in evolution, we got up on two legs. We could see clearly now in front of us and that was very important for our survival.
We got a “tall perspective” of view and our body understands that as a number one mission. Keep her or him uprightly.
If we have developed rounded shoulders posture, the first reaction of our body is to lift our head up by adopting a forward head posture. Yes, the same one you are, probably, having right now. The next thing is calling our lower back extensor muscles “to weapons” and turning them into a turbo mode. They become overactive and they pull your pelvis into extensive lumbar lordosis.
Everything pays, so your abdominal muscles are becoming too extended. What is the result? Overactive muscles are causing the opposite muscle or group of muscles to become overextended and in the end, the pain comes. This story can also lead all to an ankle or a toe or to your shoulders and neck.
- Stress matters
We have to underline the impact stress has on our locomotion system. To easily understand this, think about the unexpected thunder hit. What is your reaction? Instinctive contraction of all front body side muscles. That is a natural reaction to stress.
The same reaction is repeated in all stressful situations, only different muscles are included. When we are in a fight or flee situations, we will activate all of our postern chain muscles. You know that there is no everyday thunder, neither are you fighting every day for your life.
That is a reason why you don’t stick in these states. But if you are constantly under stress in your job or you are having verbal fights with people on a daily basis, your stress alarm is overactive.
- Lower back pain syndrome fix
There is no magic trick to fix this. First of all, you will have to understand when did your pain came and how it came. When you understand this, you will easily conclude that learning appropriate posture patterns is a starting point for your relief. Parallel to that, you will have to learn and understand how to manage stress.
A good suggestion to that is an AEQ somatic method. When you learn and understand the majority of this, we am sure that you will fulfill your life by being pain-free. Also, doing exercise regularly helps to avoid back pain, as it gives the body proper training to adjust to different positions.
You do not need to work out like if you were a horse preparing the Kentucky Derby. Simple relaxation exercises or practicing sports like cycling or swimming, will help you relieve your pain.
If you pay attention to your posture and you exercise your body regularly you will have less chances of getting lower back pain syndrome.
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