Precautions for the 40+ Back

Did you know that the most common precurser to back pain (besides a traumatic injury or a genetic condition) is a combination of weak core muscles and tight pelvic and lower body muscles?

If you did, you might also already know that most adults (and a surprising number of kids, from my experience) have both conditions. This is a big factor in the percentage of Americans develop back pain at some point in their lives - 80%.

Protecting your back against injury basically entails two separate but closely related (and interdependent) efforts:

1. Proper posture and biomechanics in everyday functional activities (including recreation and sports)

2. Proper conditioning as a preventive measure

Today I'm going to briefly discuss elements of the first, since most people don't exercise but everyone does physical stuff around the house, yard and office. I'll expand and provide more detail in future posts. My main objective initially is to get you thinking about the importance of all this.

I blogged about posture recently so let me touch on biomechanics for everyday activities. I could easily draw up a page-long list of "do's" and "don'ts", but let's face it - you'd forget most of them almost as soon as you read them. So I'll focus on the most common /severe mistakes and how to fix them:

1. Hunching and picking something up with both feet together. This puts way too much uneccesary stress on your low back. Correct that by doing this instead:

Drop to one knee and wrap yourself around the load (rather than bending forward out over your feet), grip the load keeping your spine as vertical as possible, brace your abdomen (like you contract it when you laugh or you're "dropping the kids off at the pool") and use your legs to get upright.

2. Bending and twisting at the same time. This is how most people pick things up and then put them down in a different direction. Bad move. How to fix it? Follow the steps described above and come up pointing in the same direction you're in when you grip the load. Get vertical and then turn by repositioning your feet.

Just these two simple modifications of everyday movements can provide an effective safeguard against unnecessary back problems.

Next post I'll cover some exercises you can do to strengthen the core and gain flexibility in your lower body.