Let's talk about Back Pain, Lebron James and the Importance of Health Professionals

Picture this: you're playing catch with your kids, you bend over to pick up the ball and BANG. All of sudden you're stuck. Your back muscles are spasming and you're not sure if you should try to come back up, or keep bending down. You're just stuck.

Or maybe you don't have kids. Maybe your back pain prevents you from exercising, putting on your socks in the morning or helping your buddy build his new fence up at the cabin.

It seems like back pain is everywhere today. You hear about it at the office, at the gym, and everyone has at least one family member or friend who deals with it on a daily basis. But why? Why do so many people experience back pain?

It's difficult to find a main culprit. Sometimes people experience arthritis in their back, degeneration of their discs, or are diagnosed with conditions such as spondylitis (a condition where the vertebra of the spine become inflamed). These are all real causes of back pain, but often times back pain exists even the absence of these types of diagnoses.

It's not hard to imagine how our lifestyle contributes to higher incidences of back pain. Just think about it. We now have access to more food than humans ever did at any other point in history (we don't even have to expend the energy to hunt for it!). We are more obese than ever before and our joints aren't prepared to handle it. We can now sit in a chair for 8 hours straight, 5 days a week and still bring in a steady income. We don't ask our muscles and bones to work very hard. We can now work in jobs where there is very little variability; jobs where you can repeat the same motion over and over all day are abundant. Think grocery store cashiers, factory workers, retail workers. We ask these workers to use the same muscles over and over without pause; no wonder they experience high levels of back pain and overuse injury.

What about the demands of recreational sport? Some people sit hunched over a desk all day with excessively short hip flexors, a lumbar spine that is unable to maintain it's natural curve, and glutes that get to relax for 8 hours straight. In this seated position, the pressure on the spinal discs can be up to 11x greater than when standing. So some people sit all day, then when 6:30 hits they head down to the gym to play in their rec basketball league and ask their body to rebound, shoot jumpers, and block shots with a near maximum amount of effort. Those glutes that just relaxed all day, are now asked to help you jump to Lebron James-like heights. You need your glutes and back muscles to stabilize you when you land. Are yours strong enough to do that? Have you strengthened them to do that? If not, then back pain might be coming your way. If you participate in a moderate amount of exercise (3-4 times a week) you're likely strong enough to mitigate some of this risk, provided your workouts hit many muscles throughout the week instead of just 4 days of chest and arms. But if you're the person who depends on basketball once a week for exercise, it would be worth your while to make sure the muscles of your core, back and lower body are up to the task of lending support to your spine.

Here lies the problem. You're not Lebron James. Lebron James can spend a million dollars a year on taking care of his body with physical therapy and nutrition. Lebron James receives training that specifically conditions and strengthens his body for the demands of basketball. What did you eat at the office to prepare yourself? Did you have lots of water and complex carbs (quinoa, pasta, sweet potato)? Or did you spend all day chugging back the coffee and eating chips out of the vending machine?

Thankfully, because you're not Lebron James, you don't have to spend as much money on preparing to play basketball. But you should spend some. You should invest in learning how to properly strengthen your muscles, how to eat to prepare for and recover from exercise, and you should learn and be aware of how to lift, sit and stand in a way that doesn't compromise your back.

The point is, we've put ourselves in a position where the demands we put on our body exceed it's capacity to do work. This is why personal trainers, sports nutrition advisors, physios, chiropractors, massage therapists, occupational therapists and manual osteopaths are so important. These professionals can help identify dysfunction in your body and find the major culprits behind your back pain. With a combination of manual therapy, stretches, strengthening exercises and adjustments to movement behavior (posture, proper lifting and running technique), health practitioners can help you deal with the demands of everyday life. While these manual therapists help take care of your body, sports nutritionists and dietitians provide you with the proper knowledge to power it and ensure that you properly refuel from long days at work, or double overtime on the court.

You only get one body. Ask yourself this: are you doing enough to take care of it?

Here are some quick tips for avoiding back pain by sitting and lifting smart:

Sit Smart

• Make sure your seat has good back support and armrests

• Try to change your position or get up for a quick stretch every half hour to an hour

• Be aware of your head position: catch yourself if you start to lean your head and upper back forwards towards the screen

Lift Smart

• Give your back a break: let your legs do most of the work by bending from the knees and getting close to the object.

• Avoid reaching for and lifting objects that are far away from your body

• Avoid twisting: lift and turn slowly to prevent from this