What is low back pain?
Low back pain is when the low back is in pain or sore (duh). This is often caused by over worked muscles in the low back. As a result, muscles are constantly engaged which causes damaged muscle fibers. This can lead constant inflammation that the body builds up and is not able to get rid of.
What attributes to low back pain?
As mentioned above, lower back pain is caused by overused muscles that lead to constant inflammation. Many things can cause overused muscles such as consistent lifting, repetitive movements, staying in one position too long or bad posture. Another contribution would be joint dysfunction/misalignments/subluxations. This is because, the muscles attached to the spine will be in uneven tension causing one part or side of the muscle being constantly engaged.
So how does this all happen?
When your joints (any joint) are misaligned, they cannot move correctly. When a joint does not move correctly, the stabilising muscles that support that joint become lazy and weak and the nerve connection to those muscles diminish as it’s not getting used much.
It’s use it or lose it for the body, brain and nerve connections and Just like having a cast on your arm or leg, without moving the joints for just 1-2 months you will see a huge reduction of muscle tone and strength and nerve connectivity.
More specific to the spine, without proper movement of the joints and strength of the muscles and ligaments of the spine, the spinal curves lose their most functional shape and instead of acting like springs to distribute everyday forces, all the forces go onto the bones and discs of the spine and cause degeneration, damage/injury and other dysfunctions to occur.
The deep stabilising muscles and their strength and activity are important as when they are not supporting a joint properly a whole host of problems can arise.
These muscles keep the joints in their proper position… so when they are weak:
- The joint is not getting any support.
- It’s not in it’s optimal position.
- Keeps locking up and lacks proper movement.
- The muscles keep getting weaker.
- The cycle keeps getting worse over time.
- Creates damage inside the bones, joints, discs and nerves
This weakness and instability within the deep stabilising muscles also creates tightness and stiffness in and around the bigger muscles around the body such as the neck (causing tension headaches), chest, shoulders, lower back, buttock and even arms and legs, creating a whole chain of improper movement and stress through the body.