Let’s face it, exercise is fun, well at times, but who enjoys doing those back stretches and strengthening exercises. And well, do they really even do anything? Has anyone actually gotten any long term relief from them?
Sure, some people find they free up stiffness and help strengthen the area to make it feel less fragile, but if you stopped doing them for a month has anything really changed. From my experience the answer is generally no.
‘In my experience most people find exercises provide some relief whilst performing them but little long term relief once stopped.’
Surely there must be another way. Surely there needs to be a better option than just doing these exercises over and over again!
The big reason I see people suffer long term with back pain is a failure to be correctly diagnosed. We lump back pain into a single category and look for a single treatment that will correct all. It’s ridiculous! We don’t do this for any other condition.
If you had a severe infection, there would be an investigation into it. Was it viral, bacterial, fungal or something else? But when it comes to back pain even the research often doesn’t segregate it.
When someone presents to me with back pain here’s a basic list of things I’m thinking of, a short list if you like:
- Sprains, strains, neurological imbalances, sacroiliac dysfunction, arthrogenic joint inhibitory patterns, muscular dysfunction, disc damage, imbrication, pelvic floor changes, core strength problems, neural gait patterning issues, knee problems, foot problems, big toe movement patterns, the list goes on and on…
- Gut problems, reproductive organ problems, cancer, aneurysms, chronic inflammation
In practice it generally takes my team 45 minutes to an hour to perform a complete assessment with the level of attention to detail required to accurately identify the cause of back pain.
So it completely frustrates me when people are generically given exercises to strengthen the back when it a lack of strength makes up one out of a vast array of causes of back pain. In fact, I don’t even see a ‘lack of strength’ as a cause of back pain in many people at all!
Movement is critical for back pain. As a profession, we’ve jumped up and down about the need to move for more than 50 years! Movement flushes out inflammation and improves motion, but movement is different to strengthening.
A thorough, detailed assessment will often highlight the true cause of your pain and allow for rapid resolution.
Don’t know where to start? Give us a call on 9318 7758 or click the chat button and let’s see if we can get a quick resolution to your pain today.
