THE specific BLOG

THE specific BLOG

3 Great Tips To Help Low Back Pain

One morning after a tough workout I got out of bed, felt pretty stiff, and realized that it was kind of hard to put my socks on that morning. 

Now being as tall as I am, low back pain has been something that I’ve been familiar with a handful of times. It’s actually one of the reasons I became a Chiropractor. For years I remember if I stood for a long time my low back would become super tight and painful. 

It wasn’t until I had quite a bit of pain riding my dirtbike that I took action and had it looked at by a friend’s dad who was a chiropractor. It was amazing to me that I was able to get out of pain without having to take medications or anything like that which I thought was pretty awesome. 

After experiencing this low back pain recently it made me remember how bad it sucked years ago when I’d have it on the regular and thought I should probably inform some people of some awesome tips that I use if I ever experience here and there. 

With that being said if you’re having excruciating low back pain I believe that your first step is to head to your primary care physician and have some testing done to rule out any sort of pathology, fracture, or anything of that nature. If they tell you to just take medications or something like that, then these tips are for you!

1. Exercise & Stretch

This may seem obvious to some but it can make such a HUGE difference! Checkout the video below for 3 simple stretches that I do myself and recommend to people for low back pain. Here’s the thing with exercise and stretching for low back pain. Now more than ever people are sitting quite a bit. Sitting long periods of time really decreases a lot of the elasticity of our muscles as well as our overall strength. 

Our muscles can become tight if we don’t exercise or stretch a lot and guess what?! A lot of our leg muscles attach to our hips and pelvis! If these don’t get used and stretched regularly then they will pull on the hips and pelvis potentially causing them to be out of whack and causing low back pain. 

When I say exercise you don’t need to be lifting heavy weights but you’d be surprised at what a different going for a 30 minute walk could do. 

Glute bridges are also great for people with low back pain as you’ll see in the video below. Activating the glute muscles is something that a lot of people have a hard time doing and by strengthening them it will cause less discomfort in the low back and hip area of the body.

Something lower impact like swimming and yoga are also great to incorporate! There are some great free yoga videos on youtube you can find with a simple search. 

2. Massage

This one seems pretty self explanatory right?! Welllll not so quick here. 

There are a few different types of massage to consider with this and different types of massage therapists too. 

You have your normal feel good massages which are great for very temporary or band aid relief. You’ll feel good when you’re getting it and maybe a little bit afterwards but no long term relief. I honestly really love these massages because they do feel sooo good!

Then there are massage therapists that look at the body as a whole. They will take an in depth history of what’s going on and determine where the problem area is. They may work more on your legs as that’s what could be tight as we talked about earlier. This type of massage might not feel the best when it’s actually being done but the amount of relief you will have days to weeks afterwards will be worth the discomfort! If you’re looking for a massage therapist reach out and we can provide you with someone!

3. Get Your Nervous System Checked

Nervous System?!

Yeah your nervous system! 

That is what’s in charge of controlling everything in your body after all! 

It’s comprised of the brain, brainstem, and spinal cord. If there is an issue with the nervous system then messages aren’t getting to and from the brain how they’re supposed to. This can cause a bunch of problems, one being low back pain. 

These messages may not be getting to the muscles and ligaments of the low back causing them to not work at 100%. 

Another thing that happens is a decrease in proprioception. Proprioception is in charge of us being able to tell where we are in space….not alien space. You can close your eyes and you know if you’re standing up right or laying down…that’s proprioceptions job. Now if the messages aren’t getting to and from the brain how they’re supposed to we can have a disturbance in this, or maybe our head won’t be on as straight as it should. 

Have you ever noticed that maybe your head is always tilting to one side or another?

Well the body doesn’t want that as we get so much of our information from our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. So what will happen is the brain will engage muscles in the back and hips to straighten out the head. This is great for us being able to comprehend information how we are supposed to…but what about those muscles?

Suddenly we have muscles in engaged that aren’t really supposed to be engaged which can cause mid back pain, low back pain, hip pain, and a leg that is shorter than the other. By making sure the nervous system is working at 100% it decreases these things from happening. 

At The Specific Chiropractic Centers we work directly with the nervous system everyday and make sure it is working correctly. We test the nervous system at every visit which takes the guesswork out of an adjustment needing to be given or not…which is HUGE for long term resolution. 

Chiropractic care like this has helped myself tremendously to the point where I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to wince in pain like I once did swinging my leg over a dirt bike or motorcycle. I lift heavy weights in the gym without anything flaring up as well. I do keep up with all 3 of these tips as I believe they are all interwoven. If this is something that you think could help give us a call or email and we’ll see if you’d be a good fit for the office!

Learn more.

Here are a few more posts on how chiropractic care can help those who suffer from headaches and/or migraines.

Thanks for reading the specific blog.