Back pain has become so common, that in any room of a dozen people, you will typically find at LEAST three who have some kind of chronic back pain. Seriously, it's epidemic. What do we do in our lives, to have caused back pain to be so common?
The simple answer is: our sedentary lifestyles. Our muscles really need move regularly to stay healthy. We have a workforce that sits. Well, at least a large percentage of the country is sitting a lot. If we aren't sitting at work, very often we are *standing* in the same position for a long time, or in the case of someone like a mechanic, they are leaning over for long periods of time. Any position we HOLD for a long period of time makes changes to our muscle and connective tissue. In simple terms, when we are in holding patterns, our muscles, and all the soft tissue around it starts to stick together. When this happens, we start to reduce our normal ranges of motion, the pressure increases on areas adjacent to those muscles, and our nerves eventually start to receive messages of tension leading to more pressure and then pain.
To evaluate patterns, you can split our days into three sections: working, sleeping and recreation. Often the positions we are in for a long period of time are the most problematic. Recreation usually causes issues along the lines of repetitive strain injuries, as opposed to the holding patterns of being still. However, sleeping and work positions are held for hours and hours at a time. When the muscles and surrounding tissues are placed in a restricted position for a long period, it begins to shorten. Think of a rubber band that hasn't been stretched in a long time. It loses it's flexibility...our muscles get to the point where they are MUCH more comfortable in the shortened position. At that point, when you try to stretch the muscle out, it's very likely to feel sore.
The next step for the majority of people, and the step *I* took when I had pain was to go to a doctor. The first office I walked into was an orthopedist, then a neurologist, who referred me to a physical therapist, then I saw a few chiropractors. When I finally made it to a massage therapist, who understood my muscular pattern, FIVE YEARS later, I was beat down. You see, at that point I was 25. I had been active, but after 5 years of pain every day that isolated me, kept me from normal social situations and created a deep level of depression, I really had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to live with that pain forever. I had seen several professionals who, in my eyes, should have understood the patterns enough to tell me it was muscular. They had hundreds of thousands of dollars of education and years and years of practice behind them. Had they seriously not EVER seen this type of issue before? Considering the many people I've spoken to in the subsequent 12 years since I let go of my pain, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that I am the only one who ever walked into that office with that type of issue, or the only one they ever waved off with an, 'it's all in your head' comment. They all basically told me that I didn't have anything wrong, or more specifically, "90% of the population has a bulging disc to this small degree, and only 10% have pain". "There's nothing I can do for you, but offer you medication to manage the pain."
The reason I share that story, is that my GUESS is that if you are reading this article, you may have also had this type of experience. The truth is that most of these doctors are not trained in the kind of biomechanics that can evaluate these muscular patterns. It's not something they have in their 'tool box'. Part of the reason back pain is so common, is that most 'solutions' the doctors are placing on the table are related to what we call the 'flow chart medicine' plan...pharmaceutical to stronger pharmaceutical escalating to a scalpel. When the scalpel comes into play with a chronic muscular pattern, it can make the issue worse. Why? The scar tissue from surgery can create more pressure on nerves and restrictions in muscles.
If you want to alleviate chronically restricted muscular patterns, the secret recipe, generally, is to move! The more we move, through full ranges of motion, opening up the body to reduce restrictive patterns, and increase circulation, the better! Move more while you are working on the computer, sleep in a healthier position, exercise, and stretch. Allow your body to feed the muscles and soft tissue with the circulation that hasn't been able to get to those spots. Recognize that unraveling old patterns can take some time, but that 'quick fix' solutions are rarely that.
I wish you well on your journey!
The simple answer is: our sedentary lifestyles. Our muscles really need move regularly to stay healthy. We have a workforce that sits. Well, at least a large percentage of the country is sitting a lot. If we aren't sitting at work, very often we are *standing* in the same position for a long time, or in the case of someone like a mechanic, they are leaning over for long periods of time. Any position we HOLD for a long period of time makes changes to our muscle and connective tissue. In simple terms, when we are in holding patterns, our muscles, and all the soft tissue around it starts to stick together. When this happens, we start to reduce our normal ranges of motion, the pressure increases on areas adjacent to those muscles, and our nerves eventually start to receive messages of tension leading to more pressure and then pain.
To evaluate patterns, you can split our days into three sections: working, sleeping and recreation. Often the positions we are in for a long period of time are the most problematic. Recreation usually causes issues along the lines of repetitive strain injuries, as opposed to the holding patterns of being still. However, sleeping and work positions are held for hours and hours at a time. When the muscles and surrounding tissues are placed in a restricted position for a long period, it begins to shorten. Think of a rubber band that hasn't been stretched in a long time. It loses it's flexibility...our muscles get to the point where they are MUCH more comfortable in the shortened position. At that point, when you try to stretch the muscle out, it's very likely to feel sore.
The next step for the majority of people, and the step *I* took when I had pain was to go to a doctor. The first office I walked into was an orthopedist, then a neurologist, who referred me to a physical therapist, then I saw a few chiropractors. When I finally made it to a massage therapist, who understood my muscular pattern, FIVE YEARS later, I was beat down. You see, at that point I was 25. I had been active, but after 5 years of pain every day that isolated me, kept me from normal social situations and created a deep level of depression, I really had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to live with that pain forever. I had seen several professionals who, in my eyes, should have understood the patterns enough to tell me it was muscular. They had hundreds of thousands of dollars of education and years and years of practice behind them. Had they seriously not EVER seen this type of issue before? Considering the many people I've spoken to in the subsequent 12 years since I let go of my pain, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that I am the only one who ever walked into that office with that type of issue, or the only one they ever waved off with an, 'it's all in your head' comment. They all basically told me that I didn't have anything wrong, or more specifically, "90% of the population has a bulging disc to this small degree, and only 10% have pain". "There's nothing I can do for you, but offer you medication to manage the pain."
The reason I share that story, is that my GUESS is that if you are reading this article, you may have also had this type of experience. The truth is that most of these doctors are not trained in the kind of biomechanics that can evaluate these muscular patterns. It's not something they have in their 'tool box'. Part of the reason back pain is so common, is that most 'solutions' the doctors are placing on the table are related to what we call the 'flow chart medicine' plan...pharmaceutical to stronger pharmaceutical escalating to a scalpel. When the scalpel comes into play with a chronic muscular pattern, it can make the issue worse. Why? The scar tissue from surgery can create more pressure on nerves and restrictions in muscles.
If you want to alleviate chronically restricted muscular patterns, the secret recipe, generally, is to move! The more we move, through full ranges of motion, opening up the body to reduce restrictive patterns, and increase circulation, the better! Move more while you are working on the computer, sleep in a healthier position, exercise, and stretch. Allow your body to feed the muscles and soft tissue with the circulation that hasn't been able to get to those spots. Recognize that unraveling old patterns can take some time, but that 'quick fix' solutions are rarely that.
I wish you well on your journey!
Tiffany Blackden is a Fort Collins Massage Therapist with over a decade of experience in the field. She thoroughly enjoys teaching massage therapists and the public about anatomy, massage and biomechanics. Her passion for years has been absorbing, living and breathing natural and holistic health practices. Not a day goes by, when she is not completely in awe of the human body. When not in the clinic, or in front of her computer, she is running, doing yoga and chasing around her two freakishly adorable children. For more information about the Fort Collins Massage Clinic she and her husband run, visit their website: http://www.fortcollins-massage.com
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