One very important thing to address as far as back pain or sciatica is concerned is posture, how you hold yourself as you go about your day. This is something all therapists should address with you whenever they are giving you treatment for back pain because it has such a huge bearing on the amount of stress that is placed onto your muscles as you do the things you do.
By now you are probably over hearing me talk about a short leg and how it causes undue stress on the joints where a person feels pain. The reason I go on about it so much is because it often has so much to do with why you have pain in the first place and bad posture is one fast way to give yourself a short leg.
I often hear of doctors and therapists who tell their patients that everyone has a short leg and it has little bearing on pain, but I can assure you that is not the case. They say the body is strong enough to withstand the pressure it causes and whereas for some people this may be true, for the large majority it is not the case, especially after a long period of time when poor circulation, common in back pain and sciatica sufferers, weakens the muscles..
When the treatment given for back pain or sciatica is strengthening exercises and they work, it demonstrates that strength is a great counter for imbalance, but strengthening exercises can also irritate pain in many cases. To benefit from a strengthening program a person can’t be suffering from acute back pain or sciatica and they need to have healthy responsive muscles which can cope with that exercise. In today’s society there are many things about our lifestyle that make muscles unhealthy and unresponsive for many people. Things like; poor diet or a diet full of process ‘dead’ food, a lack of regular exercise, too much stress, carrying an imbalance in the muscles for a long time, or very importantly poor posture which has the effect of over loading the muscles physically, causing them to get fatigued and tight which affects circulation and causes them to become weak.
The people who do tend to respond best to exercise programs for their back pain or sciatica are younger people who are naturally stronger and suppler and who haven’t allowed their muscles to deteriorate too far, generally because of a lack of time passing in their life. But this is also the time a lot of people begin to develop bad posture habits because they don’t feel the effects straight away and by the time they do the damage has been done and the back pain or sciatica has become chronic.
When you use an exercise program to strengthen against your pain the benefits can be very short term if you are not also focussing on your posture. Both exercise and any treatment you get for your back pain or sciatica are generally only happening for a few hours a week, but your posture on the other hand is affecting you every moment you are sitting or standing and that can amount to 16 or more hours a day.
If you focus on good posture especially holding the symmetry in your body and try to use the muscles on both sides of your body evenly, you will help to keep your spine straight and your pelvis balanced and this has a profound effect on minimising or avoiding any back pain or sciatica. It is the least stressful position for your muscles. By holding a good posture you can also more easily become aware of the areas of your body that are tight and blocked and then you can work on these areas with the self help exercises I go through in my Self Treatment Program. Slowly but surely you eliminate these blocked areas until your body is more supple and balanced and good posture is easy to maintain, added to your strengthening work, you will get a longer lasting effect.
You can find more information on posture in your free copy of The Bad Back Book or my Self Treatment Program specifically designed for back pain or sciatica sufferers.
For now, always be thinking of your posture and see how much better it makes you feel.
© 2007 Steve Lockhart. All rights reserved.