My 3 Best Tips to Prevent and Relieve Back Pain
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do not take this article as a substitute for professional or medical advice. Please consult a medical professional for any injuries or questions about this or any exercise program.
You’re going through your day, running from task to task when BAM. You double over because something in your back has gone wacko. Is it just a minor tweak? Are you injured? You don’t know, but it is agony.
Suddenly, your mental focus is consumed with the pain in your back. Your office chair turns into your own personal torture device. As you hobble through your tasks, you dream of getting relief, maybe a massage, or just a comfy surface to lie down on. Your good mood and any ounce of productivity are sucked right out of you.
Your day has been hijacked. Back-jacked.
Have you ever experienced something like this? I have, and it is so freaking disruptive, not to mention painful.
Well, friend, if you’re in this boat or want to avoid this boat in the future, I am here to help! I have put together 3 of my very best tips for helping you get back pain relief and prevent future back pain.
These tips are a culmination of my experience as a personal trainer, the knowledge I gained from an incredible professor who mentored me during my Exercise & Wellness degree, research from the best back experts out there, and my own back pain experience.
Are you with me? Let’s dive in!
First off, there is something you absolutely need to understand about back pain & other muscular pain.
In so many ways, the human body is an ecosystem. The climate of one organ, muscle, or even your mental state can affect the entire body. Bodies are meant to be in the right balance to optimize performance and health.
In particular, your muscles, ligaments, and tissues are all connected. What happens in one muscle affects what happens in other tissues or muscles. This interconnectedness of the body is called the Kinetic Chain.
You can literally think of it as a giant chain. A tug on one end of the chain can affect any other connected “chain links.”
There are many things that can cause pain in the back (not to mention other muscles). However there is one factor, in particular, that is a common culprit to injury. This mischievous little devil is called muscle imbalance.
Depending on the activity, (climbing stairs, running, lifting a child, etc.) different muscles come into play. Some do the bulk of the work. Others help. Some stabilize the body while the action is happening so you don’t fall over.
Different muscles have different jobs at different times.
But often we adopt incorrect movement patterns. Everyone does it one way or another.
Put in another way, we use poor form for everyday life, not to mention exercise. We use the wrong muscles for certain or many activities. This leads to over and under-use of muscles which can lead to pain and injury.
For example, you may walk with your feet pointed out, or chronically slouch. You might sit too much, or try to get one more set of deadlifts in, even though your form is shot because you are too fatigued.
You can actually even predict how someone is likely to get injured based on the way they walk, sit, squat, run, and generally move.
But here’s the problem, a lot of times you don’t even know what you did wrong! You don’t necessarily FEEL yourself moving incorrectly. You don’t know where your form has gone wrong either in exercise or in your daily movements.
Fear not, there are three key things you can do to prevent and ease back pain and other muscular pain, even when you don’t know what you are doing wrong.
As you read these tips, please remember that this post is not a substitute for medical advice. There may be something more serious going on, and you do not want to leave your pain untreated. As I mentioned earlier, the body is an ecosystem. If you have an untreated injury or dysfunction, it will cause more problems down the kinetic chain. It will beget more injuries. Find a physical therapist or doctor and get some medical attention. These tips can help in the interim and prevent future pain.
3 Ways to Avoid & Relieve Back Pain
When exercising, visually check your form
Use a mirror when lifting weights, or record yourself when running, doing other cardio, or lifting. You can also ask a friend to watch you and give you feedback on anything that looks weird. Don’t be embarrassed! Athletes do this all the time.
If a particular lift is new or difficult, do it without weights until you have the form right. For example, you can use a PVC pipe for practicing a snatch or deadlift.
Ideally, you would be able to ask a trainer to check and correct your form, but that’s just not possible for most people. Google any lifts that you think you might be doing wrong and simply type, “how to do x exercise correctly,” to get some quick tips.
As mentioned before, always, always, always avoid adding weights to the exercise or go really light until you can perform the exercise correctly.
If you are new to lifting, you might want to consider using machines (such as a leg press, bicep curl, lat pull down, etc.) to start getting the proper form down before progressing to free weights (aka dumbbells) where there is more opportunity for you to get hurt. Get more tips on how to start weight training here.
Use a walking routine (with proper form) to help relieve your back pain. Ask someone to record you walking, and watch the recording. Correct your form if needed.
Harvard Health states that when walking you should strive to
Stand tall
Keep eyes up
Swing your arms from your shoulder joint
Keep your pelvis neutral
Step lightly
One of the most renown back experts out there is Dr. Stuart McGill. A huge part of his back rehabilitation program is a walking routine. Walking correctly can help an injured back heal and give pain relief when done correctly. It can even act as a sort of “spine massage.” This video will take you through his method, I’ve used it for my own back pain and it’s great.
3. Most important tip - exercise stabilizing muscles regularly
While many muscles help us actually move, we have several muscles that stabilize and hold us in place. These muscles are typically less obvious than our more superficial “vanity muscles,” (i.e. biceps) so we often don’t even know they are there. If we neglect these muscles, we can end up in chronic pain or injured. This can happen to even very muscular people who haven’t given these stabilizing muscles enough attention.
From my own experience and research, the stabilizing muscles that need the most attention are:
Transverse Abdominis
Exercises include: Pelvic tilt (the first exercise in this video), Bird Dog, McGill Curl Up
Internal & External Obliques
Exercises include: Staggered Feet Side Plank or Modified Side Plank, Internal Obliques Rotation
Multifidus
Exercises include: Basic Lumbar Multifidus Activation, Glute Bridge, Bridge & March, Modified Side Plank, Bird Dog
Pelvic Floor
Exercises include: Kegels, Deep Squat Stretch, and a cluster of other pelvic floor exercises found here
Diaphragm
The best thing you can do for the diaphragm is learn how to breathe from the diaphragm
Quadratus Lumborum
The QL is often overworked. I injured mine a couple years ago and it created miserable back pain. Here are a cluster of stretches that will help relax a tight QL. Strengthening your Transverse Abdominis is also key to a healthy QL.
Psoas
Also often overworked. Learn how to stretch it here.
Glute Medius
Exercises include: Glute Bridge, Glute Medius Wall Lean, and this group of exercises is also really helpful.
I know this is a lot of information. Don’t be overwhelmed. You can make a whole workout out of these exercises, sprinkle some in with your regular workouts, or simply start doing a few every day. You could even just start with diaphragmatic breathing.
To help you out, I created a whole blog post on how to create and perform your own stabilization workout along with an actual workout put together by me, totally free.
You will be amazed at how these exercises can help you. While at physical therapy for diastasis recti (basically my abs seperated during pregnancy), my therapist had me perform a side clamshell plank. My back, which was not even being treated, magically felt so good. It hadn’t even been particularly bothering me. The kinetic chain is real!
Well friend, there you have it! My 3 best tips for preventing and relieving back pain. I hope this gives you some relief and prevents future pain.
For more help on how to use exercise to prevent pain and build your deep core muscles (as well as other muscles), check out my post all about creating a stabilization workout, and get your very own workout (created by me) here!
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