Lower back pain is the most common musculoskeletal ailment. Nearly everyone at some point has back pain that interferes with their daily routine, such as work, recreation or activities. Much of this is a result of our behaviors in modern-day society. The majority of us spend too much time sitting with poor posture at inadequately ergonomic workstations.
Americans spend at least $50 billion each year to relieve lower back pain, which is the most common cause of job-related disability and a leading contributor to missed work. Back pain is the second most common neurological ailment in the U.S. — only headaches are more common.
What can be done to cure or prevent lower back problems?
Safe, controlled, slow and intense exercise is the key for dealing with lumbar spine pathology. Many people resort to a variety of treatments to alleviate their symptoms, but the only way to optimize back function is through exercise.
Exercise to the muscles that support the spine will pump blood, oxygen and nutrition into injured and spasmodic muscle tissue, aiding the healing of the affected area and breaking spasms. The imbibing of fluid to the vertebral disc can open up disc space and relieve back pain and radicular symptoms in the lower extremity.
Proper exercise will improve posture, lessening the burden on involved musculature and can even help slow or reverse age-related height loss. This phenomenon can often be experienced immediately. After engaging in just one, three-minute set of proper exercises, clients will remark that they feel taller, stand up straighter and many times have immediate reduction of symptoms.
What might someone expect if they take the time to strengthen their lower back?
Back pain can be debilitating and will affect most people at some time or another. These incidents can be reduced or eliminated if you participate in a lumbar-specific strength exercise program just once per week. In addition to protecting your lower back, you will see enhanced functional ability. The muscles that protect the back function to flex, extend, rotate and side bend the spine, but in sport and recreation, they also transmit force from the ground up, through the lower extremities, trunk and out through the upper extremities. So not only will your lower back benefit, but so will your golf swing and your ability to walk, run, climb, jump or lift your children.
Source: www.sbnonline.com; February 1, 2013.
