Most Common Cause of Low Back Pain

We'll cut right to the chase. The most common cause of low back pain is from tight or weak muscles in your low back. Our low back makes up a significant portion of our torso and is pretty well the center (aka middle) of our body, attaching our upper half to our lower half. This makes our low back a crucial area in our body for transmitting forces from our arms to our legs and vice versa. If you've experienced low back pain before, you may have noticed pain in your low back while walking or running as a result of this transmission of forces. In fact, almost ANY movement you do transmits forces through your low back. This is why most movements are painful or uncomfortable when you experience low back pain. From getting up from a chair, to getting out of bed or getting into your car, to lifting every day items. All of these movements require coordination between your upper body and your lower body to be successfully completed, transmitting forces through your low back. 

Since so many forces pass through your low back on a daily, it makes sense that there would a lot of muscles in your low back. And you'd be correct, there are a LOT of muscles in your low back, both big and small. These muscles may get tired from daily activities and result in pain for you or you may have a sudden, obvious injury that results in low back pain. Regardless of the mechanism of injury, one very important part of healing and recovering from ANY type of low back pain is core strengthening. Your core is collectively made up of your abs, your obliques and your low back muscles. When your core is strong and functioning well, it acts as a stabilizing belt for your low back similar to the belts you see professional weight lifters using when lifting extreme weights. For a stabilizing belt to work properly, the muscle coordination between your abs, obliques and low back muscles must fire at the same time otherwise you get a tight part here and a loose part there. A stabilizing belt that is both tight and loose at the same time doesn't do much stabilizing at all. And of the three parts of your core, the low back muscles will often fire the hardest and that results in tightness, fatigue or injury in those muscles. And that results in you having low back pain. 

Have more questions about your low back pain or interested in other reasons for low back pain? Comment down below or if you're in the Guelph area, drop on into Nurture Family Chiropractic and ask for Dr. Brenda Yee. 

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YOUR LOW BACK PAIN