Back Pain
At Oxford University’ School of Medicine, they have defined back pain as “the process of youth leaving the body”, well not exactly…..but it feels that way!
How is back pain caused?
Back pain can be caused by numerous reasons and multiple factors. In some instances, it can be related to an acute onset and other times it can be something gradual. What we do understand is that keeping active and remaining active is an important part of helping symptoms.
What can I do in the short term?
Maintain movement as best as possible walking, moving and gradually developing confidence in your ability to work with your symptoms. There are many options that help with back pain. They are all useful but are specific to you, your injury history and medical history if in doubt consult your GP or Pharmacist.
What can physiotherapy do?
As mentioned earlier, each case of back pain is specific to that person experiencing it. Working with your physio to tailor a rehab program to assist you through it is vital. Your physio will workshop with you around daily habits, work, training and family life to develop some gentle exercise and progress this gradually.
What is the long-term solution?
In regard to most weekend athletes and back pain from participating in sport I would start with “listen to your body whisper before you hear it scream!”. A bit dramatic but I dare you to consider if this is you? Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all to back pain and can take time. What is important, is to understand that it usually is a multi-factored problem and working with a physio who understands this is important.
Core training can involve anything from yoga, pilates, squatting, lunging and deadlifting unfortunately there is no definite recipe to stop you from developing back pain however we know variety and better awareness to how you spend your time recovering from training, switching off physically/mentally and gradually loading your training program with adequate supplementary training will go a long way to helping. Develop a training program which keeps you accountable to the regular strength training as much as those big weekend training blocks.
