Most doctors will tell you the cause of your pain is where you feel it. But that’s not always the case.
Especially when you’re talking about back pain.
You see, when it comes to chronic back pain, you may be surprised to know that the problem may not have anything to do with your back.
In most cases, the source of back pain is due to muscle, tendons or ligament imbalances that cause your back to be pulled out of alignment. And this pulling and tension results in pain.
Your body is filled with tendons that attach your muscles to your bones. There are also ligaments that attach bones to bones. And as you age, the muscles in your body shorten and your joints lose their range of motion. These shortened muscles stretch out your ligaments and tendons and can cause your bones to fall out of alignment.
This misalignment puts undue pressure on nerves and tissue, resulting in back problems.
To fix this, mainstream medicine often recommends popping a pain pill or invasive surgery. Not only are these methods not always effective, they’re far from a permanent solution.
A third, and more effective, solution is stretching exercises.
But the exercises I’ve seen that come from orthopedics’ offices are just plain wrong. A lot of them wind up stretching the ligaments, which ends up stressing them and weakening them more. So, not only do they not work, they often wind up making the problem worse.
These exercises end up loosening your ligaments and tendons. And this results in looser joints. This is not what you want to do. Loose joints mean the chance of injury is greater.
What you want to do is tighten the ligaments and tendons around your joints. Tighter joints mean you’re less likely to suffer an injury.
The good news is that there are several stretches you can do on your own to tighten your joints and help improve your back pain. And it takes only a couple minutes a day.
They’re called hip flexors:
1. Stand up straight with your right foot forward and left foot back. Keep both feel flat on floor.
2. Put your hands on your hips and keep your back and hips in straight alignment.
3. Push forward with your hips, while maintaining your erect posture. Slowly, push your hips forward only until you feel a comfortable level of tension.
4. Hold for 10 seconds.
5. Then switch sides by reversing your leg stance and repeat.
This is just one simple exercise that works for me. I’ve also seen many of my patients help improve their lower back pain by just doing this one exercise.
If you want some more helpful tips on simple, natural solutions to your back pain, there’s a self-assessment program you'll want to check out. One my colleagues at the Healthy Back Institute has put together an easy-to-use, comprehensive guide that enables you to find out exactly why you're experiencing pain, where exactly it is coming from and how to get rid of it. It’s called The Lose The Back Pain System.
If you want more information go to: Alsearsmd.com
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
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