Most of us at some stage in our lives have suffered some sort of lower back pain, where you just can’t seem to do much for a week or two. Often it seems like something simple that triggered it to come on. And it always seems to happen when you have a busy week. In a small number of cases, it can be related to some medical conditions or disc issues.
It certainly feels like it is coming from a stiff muscle or joint that doesn’t seem to be working very well. And posture has been blamed for lower back pain episodes, but there is not much evidence to support that bad posture caused your back ache to come on and most back pain is not related to a damaged muscle or tissue. Factors that have been investigated for causing back pain are feeling stressed, not sleeping well, or feeling tired. Movement is also important for health and being able to move in different directions with some confidence is also beneficial for your back to allow you to bend and extend and rotate.
If your brain doesn’t feel safe, you may well be moving very carefully, it may be a factor in how well your nervous system controls your muscles and causes them to stiffen up. Have you lost mobility, or it could be how well your muscles can handle forces using different muscular contractions. It’s always a 2-way thing where your body and brain receives information from your arms and legs and then sends signals back to your muscles to work effectively.
There are no special exercises for back pain but finding one you are comfortable with can help get you moving again. If you haven’t exercised in a while, then you may want to consider building in a few weekly moves to restore movement.
How well can you balance? Do you get out of breath walking? Or do you struggle getting off the sofa? It might be time to consider a weekly exercise class.