Written by Zoe Knight
Back pain is an all too common inconvenience that just like most illnesses, diseases, and injuries – can be avoided. To do so though, you need to know the warning signs, you need to know common causations, and you need to work on prevention. Because back pain is a very broad topic and very case specific, the course of action to fix, or prevent back injuries and back pain in most cases should always depend. It should depend on the cause of the back issue, the person’s ability, their lifestyle, other injuries or imbalances they may have and their skeletal structure.
In saying that though, there are some things everyone can do to help prevent back injuries and back pain regardless of their strength and fitness levels or current situation. These are to:
Back Pain Tip 1: Ensure all exercises are performed with correct form and technique
This is by far the most important aspect to preventing back injuries from happening not just in the gym, but also around the office and home as well. Just as using poor form or poor technique can cause serious injury and harm, using good form and correct technique can have a just as powerful opposite effect – injury prevention. This is where training with a good coach becomes invaluable.
Back Pain Tip 2: Work on strengthening your ‘core muscles’
The majority of people consider their core to be their abdominals or those ‘6 pack’ muscles, when in actuality, your core comprises of your lower back muscles as well. It’s very important to ensure that your exercise program incorporates ways in which you can strengthen your core in its entirety.
Back Pain Tip 3: Balance your strength and mobility
Continuous sitting and poor posture often results in imbalances in muscle strength and tightness. Balance out your strengths so you do not stay, or become dominant in any one area. This usually means that the exercises we hate doing because we aren’t any good at them, are the exercises we need to be doing to restore muscular balance. Doing so will in turn improve your posture which will go along way in ensuring you don’t injure yourself outside of the gym.
Looking after your spine and posterior chain is a work in progress but it doesn’t have to be difficult, inconvenient, unsustainable or unmanageable. The key to doing so involves a little bit of education and know how and a good coach goes a long way towards injury prevention and a lifetime of strength, limberness, and being injury free!