Thoughts On:
Training, Rehabilitation, & Best Care Practices
We all have experienced sitting for long periods of time or sleeping on different beds while traveling, and we have all experienced the low back pain that comes from it. This can be frustrating especially for those who travel often. With that said we have some easy tips that can help alleviate the low back pain, we experience while traveling.
Low back issues are one of the most common causes of disability worldwide, responsible for BILLIONS of dollars spent on health care and lost time at work annually. If you have ever experienced low back pain, you know that it can not only impact your hobbies and ability to remain active, but it can make even the most common of daily activities challenging. Our goal with this series is to help you better understand the cause of your low back pain, provide real solutions to help you manage it, and show you that there are many care options out there, some you can do at home, that allow you to remain free of prescription drugs and surgery.
Back pain is not a one-size-fits-all problem, there are most commons, but your approach to care needs to be as individual as you. Without a proper and thorough assessment, it is hard to say which approach will work best for you, but through the experience of helping hundreds of people alleviate their low back pain every day, we can focus on a few of the most common causes and their proven strategies for relief.
The title of this post may confuse you and you may be asking, 'What has changed with stretching?' (To bypass my ramblings, scroll to the bullet points at the bottom).
That is a GREAT question! It seems that about every year or two, we change our opinion on stretching. Should we do it? Should we not do it? When? Where? How? After a while it all gets very confusing and we fall back on the ol', 'Well, if that works for you, then keep doing it' mentality.
Dynamic cupping and how it fits in to your sports recovery and pain relief.
Outside of a select few who actually had cupping therapy prior to 2012, most of us remember the first time we saw the little bruise circles - Michael Phelps, 2012 Olympics. Just as Kinesio taping sparked our curiosity during the prior Olympics with Volleyball megastars Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor, as soon a Michael Phelps stepped on the starting platform for his first races, questions started to pop up on every major news outlet across the world.
If you are among the estimated 50% of all athletes who experience recurrent low back pain, don’t stress, there are exercises that can help…and a couple you should probably avoid.
Our ‘core’ is the link between our upper and lower bodies, and mastery of control here is the secret to improved strength, running efficiency, faster speed, and overall health and athleticism. In regards to back pain, our core needs to be solid to not only support a stable spine but provide for proper biomechanics when running, throwing, squatting, swimming, and even just walking.
The more we study dry needling, the more we understand its benefit and expand its use in the treatment of musculoskeletal injuries. Addressing everything from low back pain, migraines, and sports injuries; dry needling proves beneficial in the most common muscle, tendon, ligament, and joint issues seen in a physician's office.
As more practitioners utilize this technique, it is important to know the basics about dry needling, what to expect from treatment, and what conditions can benefit from this therapy. Below are seven important items to understand when seeking treatment.
As I near my 2 year mark in clinical practice, you start to realize trends. Sometimes these trends solidify what we already know, align greatly with what we are already practicing, and allow us to continue down the beaten path. However, there are things we begin to see as key indicators on how an injury occurred, things that are so simple, they often get overlooked in a treatment plan. Today I want to briefly discuss an item that falls under both of these categories.
Hip range of motion (ROM) is often taken for granted, until that time comes where one side is severely restricted and we are unable get up off the floor without the use of our hand, or the assistance from another. As I have progressed clinically, hip ROM started as just something to jot down in a patients notes, but has quickly become one of the first areas I look to and address for nearly all of the low back pain** and lower extremity complaint (acute and overuse) patients that come into our clinic.
The problem we see is that the restriction is never symmetrical, causing compensatory patterns that quickly lead to injuries and confused patients. While getting you out of pain is our job, our goal is education and prevention. Below are some great stretches and mobility movements that are not only easy to perform, but effective is restoring symmetrical movement. Enjoy.
Endurance athletes, especially runners, tend to shy away from strength training due to what I would consider a misunderstanding of what it can provide. After working with hundreds, probably thousands by now, of runners and triathletes over the last few years, I find very few have a regular strength plan. Some are afraid of getting hurt, some do not know how to effectively strength train, and some still have the ridiculous notion that if they lift weights they will get so bulky, the can no longer run!
Do you stretch? When? How? More importantly WHY? This will be brief, and there are many sides to this table, but where do you sit on this topic? When the discussion about stretching arises, it is sort of like the old saying on religion and politics; no matter what you have to say or how compelling your argument, you will never change the views of the other person and will usually walk away further apart on the subject than when you began.
