How to treat Lower Back Pain

If you already know how to train and eat, probably this section is the most important part of this website for you. Literally, there is barely anything useful on the internet, and that is kinda scary if I can be honest. We have the internet full of medical and fitness websites, forums and all the useless bullshit, while people just suffer and suffer, and sometimes end up undergoing some surgery, while the treatment actually does exist, and it is easily accessible and everybody can do it by themselves. For real! So don’t worry, science has always the answer!

One of the most common injuries is lower back pain. It can be chronic and acute. Chronic lower back pain occurs from lifestyle and acute from an injury or accident-like bad movement. If you train well, acute will avoid you for the rest of your life, but your sedentary job may inflict chronic lower back pain on you.

What is Lower Back Pain?

Lower back pain tortures many people, it can already appear in your 20’s, and will haunt you until you die. Sedentary lifestyle is a curse for our lower backs. I’m not suggesting to pretend you are a teenage dick and stand all the time, but obviously our anatomy is not designed for constant sitting. You may take it as a natural part of your life, but if not taking any action, it may grow into a hernia, and then you’ll be really fucked. Imagine you are naked and walk on all fours in the middle of a barn full of horny stallions…well, it’ll be much worse!

People tend to make peace with the lower back pain, since they think everybody has it. Only when there is an unbearable pain they realize that something is indeed not very kosher, and only now they go to the doctor, or just google their symptoms finding out they have brain cancer.

What will the doctors suggest?

  • physiotherapy with magnets
  • physiotherapy with electric impulses
  • physiotherapy with a laser
  • surgery

Unfortunately, when you successfully herniate your disc, then surgery is almost inevitable. You can train around it, manage to live with it, but you will have to resolve it eventually, otherwise it can deteriorate.

What can cause Lower Back Pain?

In order to understand the healing process you need to get familiar with what causes lower back pain. We sit at school, we sit when we study, we sit when we work, we sit at home, we sit during transportation, and even in a bar. Moreover, we sit during multiple exercises, and after all of this we may even target the lower back muscles during our workouts directly or indirectly. Moderate lower back workout helps battling the harmful effects of sedentary lifestyle, but once you strain it, and you won’t give it any time to regenerate properly, then you just go downhill by constantly aggravating the injury. Nonetheless, don’t believe people who would blame you for causing it to yourself by not doing deadlifts. Lower back pain roots in your daily routine and how you work, constant positions, etc., has little to do with “underdeveloped” lower back. If you doubt what I say just try to get a lower back injury, and then you’ll notice in how many cases you actually use those muscles.

Repetitive movements

Repetitive movements occur mostly at work, etc. You just sit in the same position, preferably in an ergonomic one, but we all know you like to live dangerously and just take up a liquid form. As you age, your immunity to this will fade away, and you will be constantly haunted by back pain that comes and goes in certain time period until it stays. If you are really stubborn, and just embrace it, you may develop a hernia, and wear it as an office war-scar, making sure you cannot train properly, and then just turn into a fat bag of potatoes with constant pain complaining how hard is life when one gets older.

Overtraining

Yes, you can easily overtrain your tendons, ligaments and muscles with bad exercises or with poor execution, but most commonly: with very frequent application of both. You think you can get the Christmas tree form on your lower back by training it even when it hurts on default, and then fantasise about girls coming to you on the beach saying “uwu I would like to decorate your Christmas tree so much, come to my bedroom and let your Santa slide into my chimney hole”, but eventually all they can score is an ugly injury.

Strains and sprains

It’s not a coincidence that usually the fitness-related tendinitis is also called repetitive strain injury. Many people think that they can maximize their exercise movement range by over-stretching the muscles. Especially in case of deadlifts, you can be the Bull Of The Village, but one moment your focus is not on point when lifting, and you can put an end to your career. This is why it is extremely important to execute every exercise properly, thus you can avoid any repetitive strain injury, and hear about them only from your uneducated friends.

The remedy

The most important part is prevention…yeah, it’s a cliche, but still. These methods work, and I have developed and tested them on myself. In my case, the pain did never go away, and regardless of how long I kept my back rested, what special tools I used…and yet no improvement occurred. Prevention of back pain is more complex than this, but yet completely simple.

After you were lazy to read about prevention, and are already in the pain phase, then rest will be your best friend, however, after a while it will be crucial to engage your back in activity, because only if you use them, only then they start to rebuild and reintegrate themselves into your movements, and only then it will heal, and only then the pain will go away.

How to prevent it?

  • get a height-adjustable desk
  • switch between sitting and standing positions
  • keep a good posture during work and workout
  • do mild stretches and take breaks
  • use legs with straight back when lifting up something heavy
  • moderate lower back exercises, don’t go to overstretched (unnatural) range of motion either
  • use belt when lifting heavy
  • avoid deadlifts from the ground
  • quit smoking
  • cut down omega-6 fatty acids (sunflower oil, grape seed oil), use healthier oils
  • sleep enough (seriously, it’s the most important dietary supplement ever)

You may not even realize, but your desk that you considered practical can literally make you disabled. Or a super expensive tuning chair covered with baby ant foreskin, that is not only overly ergonomic, but you can turn around so smoothly while listening to Mozart’s Lacrimosa you literally feel like a supervillain in the most dramatic moments of a Hollywood movie…yet it will still give you false sense of safety. Ergonomic tools are one of your most important investments. The backs position should always be straight, otherwise it gets unnatural pressure, which is not ideal even without symptoms, but with them it should be completely avoided. Some people keep their back and constantly bent without even noticing. This may lead to long-term damages, so just pay attention, and then your subconscious will quickly adopt the healthy state. Breaks are always welcomed, especially if you use your back a lot (you may not even notice it, but it does a lot of work in the background), just make some movements with them, stretch a little (not too much!). When lifting or pushing with legs your back can be under a lot of pressure. Weightlifting/powerlifting belt helps amazingly to alleviate the pressure, thus allowing you to train without pain and to prevent injuries. Your back muscles are used in your daily activities, as well as in gym exercises too. Not only in lower back exercises (like deadlift), but they are actively engaging even in squats, leg press, rows, etc. Also, when people directly train them, they tend to overstretch them for the bigger movement range: don’t do that! Especially in case of deadlifts, always start from a higher position. Smoking decreases blood flow and increases inflammatory activities. I mean, it’s unhealthy on default, but when it’s with a little exaggeration about life and death, then it’s the perfect opportunity to get rid of an addiction, thus building a stronger personality as well. Omega 6 fatty acids increase inflammatory activities in your body. There is nothing wrong with using sunflower oil once in a while, or using grape seed oil (for example for steaks due to its higher smoke point), but in general, try to use them as less as possible, and look for more balanced fatty acid profiles, like olive oil. Check the Ingredients page for more info, you won’t regret it. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of sleep. You may get by by sleeping less, but you will eventually pay the price for it. 8h is good, seriously, just do it. And don’t tell me you don’t want it, lol!

How to treat it?

Phase 1.

  • switch between sitting and standing positions
  • keep a good posture during work and workout
  • do mild stretches and take breaks
  • NO lower back exercises, careful squats, legpress, etc. (or where your lower back is involved)
  • try not to sit during commute or travel
  • icing and anti-inflammatory creams and medication ONLY at the beginning, as long as it is still swollen

When you reach the 1st healing phase there are two things to keep in mind: leaving your muscles, tendons and ligaments to rest and then taking care of the inflammation. Inflammation is a natural process that is designed to provide the much needed blood flow for the injured tendon, however, the swollen tendon tissue may damage your nerve tissues, and that damage could be irreversible. Stretching is not recommended, only very mild ones, because the inflamed area is very sensitive and vulnerable right now. This is why ditch the lower back exercises, do squats and leg presses carefully, and use belt at heavier weights even during rows or chest pushes, because this phase is about nothing else but healing. You can easily battle inflammation with icing and anti-inflammatory creams. I would not quite recommend anti-inflammatory tablets, but if the problem is way too severe, couple of days of tablets won’t do any harm. Keep in mind that while anti-inflammatory treatments reduce inflammation, they also inhibit healing, since they interfere with collagen synthesis, thus with rebuilding the damaged area itself.

Phase 2.

  • increase the circulation (massage, putting into warm water, sauna, etc.)
  • gradually start to engage them in exercises gently (avoid exercises that cause pain)
  • use belt when lifting heavy

And this is why the 2nd phase of healing is about actual healing. The 1st phase was your Stalingrad to stop the nazi inflammation, and now is your turn to march all the way to Berlin! Now is the time to rebuild your war-torn tendons, damaged muscles and scattered ligaments. At first, increase the circulation by every way possible. Massage your lower back, put something warm on it, go to sauna, etc. Sauna is an excellent way for “this type of cardio”. You have to realize that increased collagen synthesis that is desperately required for your recovery will be stimulated by stimulating the given area itself, hence you will have to engage it in activities again. If workout is too much for them, you can use some rubber bands. Another way to alleviate the injured are from unnecessary pressure during workout right now is using belt even during non-lower back exercises.

And that’s it, if you pass these steps, you can gradually return back to the normal, and can be stronger/faster/etc. more than ever! Happy healing!

What about light therapy?

Light therapy won’t do any harm, but it is mostly intended to kill malignant microorganisms on a healing scar, it’s not some healing magic beam. Basically a flashlight could do the job better, since it provides more warmth.

How about visiting a chiropractor?

Dude, I love Harry Potter too, but magic doesn’t exist, and giving tons of money to charlatans is a transgression against civilization.