When life gets to be a pain in the butt (guest post)

by

I’ll be honest about this: I was torn when MizFit asked me if I would guestblog.

On one hand, since I adore MizFit and her blog, I am flattered and honored. On the other hand, when MizFit suggested the topic of my guestblog, I was sorry and saddened.

Let me explain: My topic is back pain, inspired by MizFit’s recent experience in “being a right angle.”  (Remember her blog of last month?) I was so sorry and sad to hear that even MizFit has been hit by back pain.

Anyone who has suffered back pain knows that not only is it excruciating, but that it is inconvenient as well.

MizFit and I know each other partly through the online fitness community. One of my specialties is the link between exercise, fitness, and back pain.  A few years ago, I was made a Partner to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness because of my writings on the topic.

Back in the 1990s, I was fortunate to know the doctor who in the 1950s pioneered the understanding of back pain, Dr. Hans Kraus. In fact, the image you see here is from a US News and World Report magazine article from the fifties (!) reporting on Hans’s findings that American children weren’t getting enough exercise – and this from half a century ago!

But that’s another story…

Back to back pain: In 1961, Hans secretly treated – and cured — President Kennedy in the White House for his debilitating back pain.

A little know secret was that during the Bay of Pigs Invasion – before Hans started treating Kennedy – Kennedy was flat on his back with back pain during the crisis that rocked the world. (In case you’re curious, Hans’s medical records of President Kennedy are archived in the Kennedy Presidential Library.)

Here’s the thumbnail of Hans’s findings on back pain: Most back pain is caused by weak or tight “postural muscles.” These are the muscles, as he defined it, that support the body – the muscles running essentially from our necks down to our knees.

Even someone in amazing, unbelievably great emotional and physical shape like MizFit can be hit by back pain – because the postural muscles need to be BOTH sufficiently strong (as undoubtedly MizFit’s are) but also sufficiently LOOSE AND FLEXIBLE (likely the issue with MizFit’s muscles…maybe she’s sitting too many hours in front of her computer writing her amazing blogs without moving).

Another major but related factor in back pain is stress. As we know, stress causes our muscles to tighten up. For good reason, as Hans liked to point out, there are popular phrases to describe people who give us stress:  She’s a pain in the neck…or, He’s pain in the butt.

Stress by itself can cause back pain (by causing us to tighten our muscles). Or it can exacerbate existing back pain.  Either way, it stinks.

But that brings us back to the importance of exercising to keep our muscles loose and flexible: We can lift weights, run marathons, take a ge-zillion exercise classes and have strong muscles…but that won’t mean our muscles are also loose and flexible.

So we can still get back pain even though we are in awesome shape (like MizFit). Strong muscles don’t compensate for tight muscles when it comes to back pain. To prevent back pain, we need BOTH strong muscles and loose muscles.

And this makes sense when we stop to think about this: When we’re on a long car ride or plane ride, or maybe sitting for hours at your computer, when we go to stand up, what happens?  Our muscles have tightened. We often find ourselves hurting and rubbing some muscle part.

There are specific relaxation exercises we can do for our muscles but for starters, we need to move more and stretch regularly—whether taking breaks at the computer to stretch, or even walking up and down the aisles during a long plane flight.

‘Course it would ALSO help if we could cut down on stress!  But we live in the real world and know that a lot of stress is outside our control: the economy…Federal deficits…spiraling mortgage payments … teenaged kids AND aging parents…wondering how long we’ve had the spot on our leg and the lump on our breast (surely just a mosquito bite)….whether Social Security will be solvent by the time we finally retire at age 84…and how the heck will Angelina and Brad manage all their kids as they grow older…

What we DO have control over, however, is how we deal with stress.

For starters, we can MOVE AND STRETCH!

MizFit Readers, I’d love to hear your comments and also offer up some simple and easy back exercises that Hans developed to get muscles loose and prevent back pain. (He used them on Kennedy and they worked!)

Interested?

As MizFit says: please to hit me up in the comments!

A scuba diving instructor, shipwreck divemaster in the North Atlantic, skateboarder, snowboarder, and veteran rock climber, Susan EB Schwartz writes about fitness, exercise, and adventure.

A mom of two, in her prior life she was a biotech venture capital executive, won awards for her first book, Into the Unknown, was designated a partner to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and blogs at SchwartzSpot

POSTS BY EMAIL

Never miss a post. Enter your email to get my latest posts delivered to your inbox.

Comments

  1. I have a bulging disc that results in sciatia if I don’t keep it in check. I do core exercises daily and strech my hamstrings, gultes and calves. If I miss a day it hurts! When it hurts I ice my lower back and put heat on my rear end. I also do cardio daily. Before I knew what I had I wasn’t as diligent with stretching and core and ended up having to take about 8 weeks off of exercise and go to physical therapy, but with good management I can be as active as I want.

  2. I sit in front of a computer for 11 hours a day and I can totally feel my muscles tense up. My hips do, too. It’s sad that most jobs require us to cement our bodies in one spot for hours. No wonder we’re all in pain!

    • Yes, our bodies were designed for the cavewoman and caveman “lifestyle” of a couple of million years ago when the Neanderthals didn’t have much time to lounge in front of the TV in their caves! You’ve wisely put your finger on the issue with so many of our jobs nowadays — we don’t get the chance to move the way our bodies need to. All the more crucial that we create reasons and opportunities to do so. Thanks for your insightful comment.

  3. Yes! I tried the C25K program and stopped after a week when my lower back was hurting. I got lots of great input that it might be many things, including a weak core and the need to stretch.

  4. YES, YES, OH YES!!!

    Me & the Miz have commiserated about the bum back – my issues tend to be in the entire left side of my back. This morning I was just moving around the kitchen and I gt such a stinging pain shooting through my left hip/back with every step. It has since ceased but now I am tight.

    I would love some help in this area! I want to continue working out but I want less pain.

    Excellent post, Susan!! Thank you for you story.

    • Jen, I am so sorry to hear that you are in such pain. If your back muscles are now spasming, you want to be very gentle and sensitive of that. IF you push too hard with spasming muscles, you can injure them. So you need to get the muscles loosened enough and stop the spasming before you can start gentle stretching and strengthening. I had back pain like that years ago myself and know IT STINKS. Just awful, really narrows your life and chips away at the quality of life. So stretching and then strengthening those muscles around your left hip/gluteus/lower back/thigh is crucial.

  5. I blew out a disk falling on the ice a couple years ago. I had surgery, recovered, and got back to my workout routine (weightlifting and Spin classes). And my back continued to hurt. Not debilitating, but I was disheartened that the surgery hadn’t seemed to ‘work.’ Then I tried a new yoga class. I kid you not, after ONE class, the difference was 180 degrees. My back felt better than it had in two years. I’ve since added 2 days of yoga a week into my routine, and while my back is occasionally sore or tired, it hasn’t had any real structural pain since. I’m definitely a proponent of the ‘Strong AND Loose’ theory to back muscles!

  7. i’m terrible at working on the core, but love the feeling of a good stretch. i know intuitively i need to be stronger in the core so its good to hear it from the experts 🙂 i also find that breathing deeply while really focussing on stretching out the muscles that are tense from the inside (if that makes sense?) is enormously helpful at getting rid of the tension in the muscles.

  9. Hmmm – all this puts in me in mind of all the hoopla about “resisted stretching” in the news these days. I’m dying to try it! Yay for stretching:)

  10. I realizes the worrynowI am very o sad to hear that you got your Supra fixed: I remember reading about some of your problem4cxb !.

  11. How timely – I just went to a physio today about my lower back. I’ve ALWAYS had trouble with it but it’s been more and more annoying lately.

    I have a bunch of exercises and instructions to stop working on the couch instead of at a desk. Strange, when someone I’ve paid tells me this, I pay attention.

    It’s all about the core and I’m working on strengthening that more and more. More core!

  12. I have no doubt my job is reason for the back pain I get from time to time. Me at a computer desk up to 12 hours a day, ugh. This year have done better getting up every 30-60 minutes and moving about, do that more to help keep moving for overall health, but back benefits too.

    Nice job guest’n!

  13. My husband and I both have terrible back pain. Mine is situated lower, and gradually moves down to my hips. His is upper back, right across his shoulders. For the last year and a half, we’ve both been losing weight and we noticed our mattress was giving us more pain than pleasure to sleep on. We didn’t fit in the divets we used to! When I saw my husband laying on his side, his spine was completely curved into an “S”! After shopping around for a while, we got a knock-off tempurpedic type mattress that was pretty firm. After one week, it was a huge difference. No stiffness, no back pain and a full night’s rest for both of us. I had no idea that a good mattress could have such a difference in back pain. Support really is important.

    Now, I just need to get moving on the stretching while sitting in front of a computer. Maybe setting a timer to move every 15 minutes?

  14. I agree with you that many of us are suffering from back pain that is caused by weak or tight “postural” muscles. As a Kinesiologist and Personal Trainer, I do come across this condition frequently with my desk-bound clients. One of the training methods that I use, with much success, for back pain is to work on the stability ball. Yes, it’s that big ball that you can sit on, roll on, stabilize on and play on that really can challenge your weak and tight muscles. You can work every part of your body while improving strength, flexibility, balance and coordination. I encourage you to try the body ball/stability ball for you and your clients.

    Great simple moves to get started are: sit on the ball and roll forward and back, roll side-to-side, do hip circles with the ball while keeping the upper body still and your abs “braced”.

  15. I think the point you make about how she may be in front of her computer too much is extremely valid. When I became a fitness blogger I started to feel as though my body actually started to take the shape of a chair. It sucks. I can feel my pelvis is tilted, my hip flexors are too tight and my glutes are barely firing when they should be. One thing I could do is stand while at the computer. While I would love this, I am just not set up for it right now. There are also some ergonomic kneeling type chairs you can purchase to keep your hip flexors from being shortened all day. You can take scheduled breaks from the chair and to certain exercises. AND last but not least, you can use a foam roller and mobility drills, and total body ab exercises to help support the area.

Trackbacks

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This