4 Exercises to Fix Back Pain

What can you do to relieve back pain?

Chronic back pain is one of the most common and expensive medical conditions, that is estimated to cost 100 billion dollars per year in the United States alone. Low back pain is a very common injury and form of disability amongst adults. It is the fifth most common reason for physician visits, and will affect approximately 60-80% of adults throughout their lifetime. Pain that occurs for greater than three months is considered to be chronic. Back pain can be either specific or non-specific:

Specific back pain is caused by another condition such as; herniated disk, fracture, osteoporosis, inflammation, arthritis etc.

Non-specific back pain cannot be linked with a direct cause

A theme across studies in the management acute, subacute, and chronic back pain have provided recommendations for more, rather than less, activity in recovery.

“When compared with other therapeutic approaches, exercise demonstrates positive results by itself and in combination with other treatment options” (Dreisenger, 2014)

What Type of Exercise is Good?

1. Flexibility and Mobility Exercises
2. General Strengthening Exercises
3. Core Strengthening Exercises

Core exercises play an important role in the management of chronic low back pain. Core exercises involve strengthening the abdominal muscles and the lumbar spine to help improve stabilization of the lumbar spine. There are four general types of core exercises that can be done:

Balance exercises – in standing, sitting, or on unstable surfaces
Stabilization – holding your body in place ( including: planks, side planks, bird dogs etc. ) Motor Control exercises – learning how to activate and control core muscles
Segmental stabilization – activation of the deep core muscles

In the Journal of Physical Therapy Science one study found that all four kinds of core exercises were helpful in the treatment of low back pain, but particular focus should be on training the deep core muscles (Chang, Lin, Lae, 2015).