Low Back Pain (LBP)

Do you wake up in pain? When you are trying to get out of bed the pain in your back takes your breath away…you move slowly…you make it into the shower and let the hot water run on your back…and finally you’re “almost ok”. And it’s still early in the day! As the day goes on it seems to improve a bit, until you get into the car and drive home. By the time you try to get out of the car the pain is back with a vengeance. This time it doesn’t seem to get any better, and you eventually go to bed – to repeat the cycle tomorrow.

These conditions can all be the end result of muscle spasms! While it seems incredible that a simple thing like a spasm can cause so much trouble, it’s easy to understand when you take a close look at the body. There are 600 muscles in the body and 206 bones. The only reason that bones move is because muscles pull on them (unless you have a traumatic accident), and therein lies the problem. The muscle originates at a stationary point in the body; it then crosses over a joint and inserts onto another bone. When a muscle contracts it pulls the insertion point toward the origination point, and the joint bends.

That condition usually being called Low Back Pain (LBP). Pain in the low back is something that at least 70% of our chronic pain clients complain about, and it is also one of the most misunderstood conditions.There are two muscles that move the low back. One is called “Quadratus Lumborum” and it is right where you rub yourself when your low back is hurting. It originates on the five lumbar vertebra and inserts onto the top of your hipbone. As mentioned earlier, the other muscle, the one that causes the majority of low back pain, is called the psoas. This muscle also originates on the five lumbar vertebra, however it goes forward, through the curve of your hips, and inserts onto the front of your thighbone (the femur).

When the muscle contracts you fold at the hip. Every time you take a step, sit down, bend over, or do anything that brings your leg up or your trunk down, you are contracting the psoas muscle. This muscle is contracted the majority of the day, and for most people, it is also contracted all night because the sleep with their legs bent. Because of this, it is common for the muscle to become shortened. However the origination and insertion points are still the same distance apart, so two things happen. First, when you are lying down you are told you have a “short leg”. The bones of your leg haven’t shortened, however the muscles are pulling your leg up toward the hip so it appears shorter. As soon as you stand up on both of your feet your legs are equal length again.

The second, and more serious, condition occurs when you are standing. The muscle is still to short, so it pulls on the other attachment – the lumbar vertebra. You now feel pain in your low back. The lumbar vertebra are being pulled forward, the disks are being compressed, the nerves are being impinged, and again you are feeling the “hair pulling” effect on the bone. The pain intensifies when you go from sitting to standing, and you can relieve the pain somewhat when you bend over, or sit down. This is because as you bend at the hip you have just brought the two ends closer together, and the strain has been removed from the insertion points. When you stand up it will again return as the muscle again pulls on the lumbar vertebra. The answer is to stretch the muscle!

Stretching is vital to the free movement of joints, and is amazing to the healing process of repetitive strain injury. Get in touch with your body. Trust your intuition. And stretch!

http://www.healtharticles.org/low_back_pain_070804.html