How To Prevent A Back Injury

One of the biggest keys to your success in dealing with spinal pain or injury is avoiding the painful movements and positions. If you have visited our practice for spine-related conditions or not, this topic relates to all of us, because we all have a spine.

The following information is from a great book meant for the non-physician to help resolve their back problems. The book is by Stuart McGill Ph.D. and is called “Back Mechanic: The secrets to a healthy spine your doctor isn’t telling you.”

“Many back pain sufferers would experience a huge breakthrough in their recovery if they only realized that it was their flawed movement patterns that kept them pain-sensitive. Much like a scab forming on our skin, our backs are constantly trying to patch and health themselves. We, however, by continuing to repeat harmful movement patterns in our daily lives cause re-injury. We are essentially “picking the scab.”

It is unreasonable to expect the body to heal if we continue to provoke it in the same way that led to the original injury. Continued provocation of pain sensitizes the nerves so that the pain is triggered by even less stimulation. Remove the provocative motions, and we can find the solution.

Here’s how pain sensitivity works: people increase their sensitivity through repeated stressful and painful loading. These muscles and joints are loaded with sensors: pain sensors, pressure sensors, force sensors, chemical sensors. Some detect carbon dioxide; some detect pain, some sense histamine for inflammation. Human joints are packed with sensors that relay position and movement information to the brain. These signals travel along the sensory nerves. Along the highway of nerves, there are checkpoints or “gates,” at junctions.

According to the Gate Theory of Pain, the idea is, to flood the checkpoint with “good information,” in other words, signals associated with pain-free movement. In this way, there is no more room for the pain signals as they are crowded out.

Try this: close your eyes and find the tip of your nose with your finger like in a roadside sobriety test. You are using kinesthetic sensory organs that run throughout your arm to navigate. These sensors alert the brain as to the position of your forefinger in relation to your nose. The sensation of this simple pain-free motion dominates the information traffic on your sensory nerves with feel-good kinesthetic sensory information that identifies position, length, and force.

Finding and repeating pain-free motions in your back will cause the remaining painful activities to hurt less. Read the previous sentence again – it really is that important.

By discovering and ingraining positive movements for your back, you will find that the pain often dissipates and then disappears entirely. This is because when we remove pain triggers and stop “picking the scab” we give our tissues a chance to rest, heal and regenerate. Simultaneously our sensors for pain are actually being desensitized. Master this, and you have mastered your back pain.

For those of you that have a known type of injury, a name to attach to your condition, your personal recovery strategy should always begin with avoiding the aggravating posture for your unique spine is key to getting yourself back on track.

In our practice, we highly recommend the Abdominal Brace, Sternum-Up and Power Zone concepts to help protect your spine and avoid injury.

Various symptoms of back pain have a distinct and known cause (although this information is not widely known making this book uniquely valuable). Injuries can be avoided if we avoid the injury mechanism itself. Here’s a recap of some pain avoidance strategies, as well as an introduction of some that will be discussed later. The knowledge in this chapter will provide the foundation that will help you:

Locate and eliminate the cause of your pain- get an appropriate assessment that provides a specific diagnosis (you will be able to obtain your own by reading chapter 6).
Increase your consciousness around what movements and postures cause you pain.
Develop replacement postures and movement that enable you to function pain-free.
Stabilize your torso, core, spine to remove painful spine joint
Develop a daily exercise plan that includes walking.
Mobilize your hips
Learn to create power at the ball and socket joints (hips and shoulders).
Learn exercises that on of movement: push, pull, lift, carry, lunge, squat, etc.

Make healthy spine choices when sleeping, sitting, or engaging in more demanding activities.

Lastly, we get many patients, and personal trainers ask us what the best core stability exercises are that are not only effective but safe for the spine. The Core 4 exercises provide that exact combination, and we highly recommend you make this part of your routine daily or at least 3-4 days per week.