Can exercise really help my back pain?

A client suffering with lower back pain with a physical therapist.

Lower back pain or LBP for short is a common complaint, affecting millions of people all over the world. It can make day to day activities much more difficult, lead to bad posture, limit mobility, and cause depression. Surgery and pain medication are options, but they often come with their own side effects and best to be avoided where possible. One of the best routes to go down is to use mobility, exercise and stretching to manage and reduce lower back pain symptoms. This article will explore more about how regular exercise/physical activity can help to improve symptoms and quality of life and how much affects our population.

• Have you sat in your office chair working away, decided you need to get up and go to the toilet or get a drink and feel stiffness or pain in your back?

• Have you been looking after the kids or grandkids, bent down to pick them and struggling?

• Are you missing your favourite activities because you feel your back pain is getting in the way?

• If you relate to any of these scenarios, incorporating exercise into your daily routine will get you feeling much more positive about what you can do and less focus on what you can’t (currently) do.

Here are just a few surprising statics I’ve found from Blackberry Clinic:

• Over 2.8 million adults in the UK suffer from chronic back pain, enduring months of discomfort.

• Back pain is a leading cause of disability, resulting in many challenges for people and their quality of life.

• Back pain has a large price tag these days with it costing the NHS and social care sector a whopping £12.3 billion a year.

• Each year, roughly 31 million workdays are lost in the UK due to back, neck and muscle pain, impacting productivity and therefore businesses.

• Back pain is a common cause of long term sickness or absence accounting for approximately 22% of such cases in the UK.

Introducing a variety of exercises into your daily routine can significantly reduce your symptoms and can be performed in a short amount of time and do not require any equipment.

Using core strengthening exercises such as the plank, side plank and hip bridge help to reduce any unnecessary load the back may be taking as well as improving your posture.

 Mobility exercises such as cat-cow, hip hinges and lying spinal twists help to improve movement in the hips and spine to enable you to move more freely as reduced mobility and bad posture could be what is contributing to the pain.

 Low impact exercises aerobic exercises such as walking, swimming and cycling take out the sudden movements and harsh impact that often causes pain up the spine but also contributes to improving cardiovascular fitness and can help with weight loss.

Working with a fitness professional can guide you through specific exercises safely, tailor a program of exercises to meet your needs rather than doing it on your own and run the risk of injuring yourself further.

-Written by Nathan from Nathan Dyas Personal Training

Lower back pain booklet, digital download or paper copy available in the Shop