Back pain can be a real problem, especially when its caused by having a sedentary lifestyle. Most people experience acute back pain lasting from days to weeks at ends while others are unfortunate enough to have to deal with chronic back pain due to injuries.
Working out with acute or chronic back pain can be a tedious task because almost every movement in the gym requires some form of support from either the lower or upper back. In fact, the most common pain is often associated with the lower back.
In order to workout with back pain, you have to understand the root cause of the problem. There exist a large number of causes for lower back pain, especially for those people that have not suffered from any sorts of injury whatsoever.
This often results from the lack of awareness of their weak, inflexible hamstrings and tight hip flexors. Injuries relating to lower back pain, on the other hand, include the slipped disc (herniated disc), degenerative disc disease and ligamentous sprains from an un-stretched back.
Back Pain from Muscular Imbalance
If you’re unaware of any true injuries which you may have sustained leading to your acute or chronic back pain or if your pain is mostly acute and coming from a particular posture problem, then working out with the pain will be a lot easier.
The key here is to do a thorough stretch of your hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes, and back before going about your normal workout. Subsequently, the minimizing of pain in the back can be achieved through some specific strengthening exercises such as the press-up back extension, hyperextension and glute raises.
Chronic Back Pain From An Injury
Something far trickier occurs when it comes to working out with a chronic injury causing the pain in your back. Injuries such as a slipped disc can be difficult to work around simply because of the different levels which the disc may be protruding at and how it affects the nerve, in turn, causing pain.
Care has to be taken when working your way around and if possible, always work together with a medical professional when determining the exercises that you can and can’t do. In general, though, body weight exercises involving your lower back are relatively safe in preventing a “flare up” or the re-herniation of your disc and should be done to strengthen your lower back.
Exercises such as the stationary lunge stretch can be done to loosen a tight Psoas Major muscle which limits the lower back movement. Also, it is imperative that you keep a neutral back in all other exercises that you do, even if it does not work on your back muscles. This is to prevent lumbar instability and reduce sciatica-type pain arising from your degenerative disc disease.
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