Sore Back

[NecessaryCatharsis]

I work for a construction company and spend most of my time on site, however I have other tasks to do for the company so occasionally I spend a day either in the office, at home on the computer (like today) or out salesmanning (drive around all day, with small breaks to walk around houses, followed by a couple hours on the computer). We have also been so busy lately that I have been spending more of my time on the weekends at home on my computer. The problem: the days I don't 'do anything', like above, my lower back gets really sore. It seems to be getting worse all the time. Today, after spending 7 hours at the computer I was almost in tears putting my boots on to go pick up the kid from school. The days I am do actual work at work, or out and about all weekend day there is no problem with it (and a long hot shower and a sleep seems to reset it to good again).

So I am thinking if I do some exercise in the morning and night on the days when I am not out on site it might help. Except, (shameful I know) I've never actually done any exercise in my life and have no idea where to start. I'm thinking maybe 1/2 hour of yoga or Pilates or something, but I'm not even entirely sure what either is (some sort of stretching exercise right?) Do I get a movie or book to follow? Is there a class to teach you. I know they have classes at gyms, but as a single parent with a very strict budget I couldn't afford a gym membership and a sitter for all the times I would need it, or afford a trainer to come to the house or anything.

Suggestions, advice. Am I even on the right track?

[mathnerd]

I'm also a broke single parent, and though my reasons are different, I also needed to find an inexpensive way to exercise. I took to running, but I also do strength and flexibility exercises. Youtube is your friend. I just looked for videos that showed the exercises I was looking for, watched them a couple times, researched to make sure they weren't doing something in a way that was dangerous, and taught myself how to do what I needed to do. Something is working right, as I'm now down 72 pounds and counting. I imagine you'd be able to find videos of the types of exercises you're looking for just as easily.

[Tama]

I recommend the book Easy Does It Yoga. It's good if you are injured or new to yoga, and has lots of light exercises.

[TheSHAD0W]

Try keeping your stomach muscles tight while you're sitting down. This pulls your weight towards the front of your body and helps keep it from stressing your lower back.

[Seshat]

Lower back pain implies (to me) that your core body isn't getting the right exercise for it; and the fact that it's worst on days when you spend much time at the computer, suggests that you need to look at how you're sitting at it.


One of the best exercises for the core body is actually bellydance. In the course of learning to bellydance, you develop every torso muscle, and learn how to move them deliberately and independantly.
If you know 'healthy lifting' and 'proper lifting' techniques, the ones which include holding your waist/belly muscles in place; that's your core body.


As for how you're sitting at your computer: get an adjustable height, adjustable back chair. Ideally, also an adjustable desk. If you can't get an adjustable desk, get a footstool. And some big books you don't use.

Sit at your computer. Adjust the chair back so that you're leaning comfortably back, but not so far back at you have to intentionally lift your head with your neck muscles to see the screen.
Adjust the chair height so that your shoulders are relaxed, and your arms bend approximately 90o to reach the keyboard. Some people say your arms should go slightly down, some slightly up - I think the individual should feel free to tweak that according to what works for them.

Adjust the footstool, if it's adjustable, till your legs are bent slightly down at the hip (hip angle should exceed 90o, but be comfortable), and your feet touch the footstool comfortably if you let the lower leg just dangle.

Put books under the monitor until the middle of the screen is at eye height, when you're sitting comfortably at the computer with your head and neck relaxed.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Seshat - Ill have to save for an adjustable office chair at home (and there won't be one at my desk at work ever, it's the spare desk for people who don't need a desk, no fancy equipment provided) but I did try a back support thing for my chair, as well as putting the computer on the island and working standing up for the day and sitting crosslegged on the couch with it in my lap and none of that seemed to help. From the posture you've described it sounds like in every case the screen was to low, and that raising it would help (but then I would have to put my arms up to type - stupid laptop)

TheShadow - how do you mean tight? Is that with the stomach pushed out like you are expecting a hit, or with it pulled in like when squeezing through a small hole?

[csquared]

Have dealt with the heart problems, I am working on getting back into shape. I am a desk jockey. I am trying to make it a point of getting out of the chair more often. Every little bit helps. Get an egg timer. Every 30 minutes, get up and stretch a little. Go get a glass of water. Just move.

Don't forget to look at your chair and how you are sitting. Keep good posture. Make sure your monitor is at a level that you don't have to tilt your head down to see it. I don't have that problem as I can't type. I am looking at the keyboard...

[EricKei]

To add on to what Seshat said -- When I used to play piano, many many ages past , the position of the arms was basically what she described. One way to see how it looks/feels is to sit in a chair with nothing ahead of you. Put your elbows against your sides with the upper arms more or less vertical and the lower arms straight out/90 degrees and the fingers straight out, as well. Then, arch your fingers so that the middle knuckles are elevated, with the tips at about the level of your wrists or a bit above. Adjust into what feels comfortable from there. Assume that you will be typing with a wrist-wrest so you don't have to hold them up (a pianist suspends them simply because there is no desk frontage in the way, but it's sustainable once you get used to it).

[Gravekeeper]

As the resident "Suffered catastrophic back and hip strain injuries and spent 4 months in physiotherapy" guy this sounds like core imbalance/weakness/tension vs poor chair posture. Lower back pain is a bitch, but there's a lot of things that radiate pain into your lower back that aren't actually a sign of your lower back itself being weak. Tight hips / gluts for example will actually pull down on your lower back. Leaving you wondering why you can't figure out wtf your lower back pain isn't going away.

Now before I say anything, I would like to stress that you really should go to a physiotherapist for an assessment. If that is not an option, allow me to offer a disclaimer that attempting any of this is at your own risk. While none of these exercises are dangerous or anything, they could be if you have a slipped disc, pinched nerve or anything like that which has gone un-diagnosed. Or if you've already pulled/torn/hurt something.

That out of the way, I will share with you some of the core exercises of my time in physiotherapy. So that you may benefit indirectly from filthy Canadian socialism. First of all, forget taking up Yoga. There are only 4 things you need from Yoga and they work wonders. But going beyond those 4 might maim you and there are certain types of Yoga that will cause you more damage than good at this point.

( My physiotherapist is also a yoga practitioner. So part of my therapy is simple yoga. )

There are 4 yoga poses/moves that will help you greatly in terms of flexibility/tension.

First of all, learn the "Prayer" stretch, aka the Child's Pose. This is The Best(tm) thing you can do really. Specifically, the Prayer stretch into Cobra. This was the single most important thing my physiotherapist stressed to me for flexibility and pain relief. ( If you're anything like the shape I was in, it should give you lots of wonderful pops in the lower back the first few times. )

Second of all, the Cat / Cow.

With both of these, do not tense, strain or fight them in any way. Do not force yourself to stretch further than you feel like you can. Do not bang against / bob against them. Contrary to popular belief, Yoga is not about maiming yourself into a pretzel. Yoga poses are suppose to be relaxed into as natural movements. Not tensed / strained / forced into.

For core strength, three easy simple bridges:

Side Bridges, Pointer Dog and the Ass Lift(tm).

Combine that with some crunches and a brisk walk or two a day ( Walking is fantastic for gently building lower back core strength ).

For your hips and gluts, which may be carrying a lot of tension and yanking on your lower back or otherwise causing an imbalance due to lack of strength. Its actually pretty simple.

You want these stretches:
Doorway Stretchs
Figure 4 Stretch

And these exercises:
Side Leg Lifts
Clam Shells
Single Leg Squats

Once you get the hang of them all, you can easily bang them out in 20-30 minutes a day. The bulk of my "lower back pathology" as my physiotherapist put it resolved in a couple months with this routine.

Now, for immediate back pain relief that may or may not currently be killing you, there are four things you can do to cope that may bring immediate relief to one degree or another:

1) The Prayer stretch, but stay in the pose and just relax into it.
2) Lay flat on your back and elevate your knees while resting your legs on a flat surface. For example, lay flat on your back and scooch your ass right up against the couch and rest your feet/ankles on the couch while your thighs are flat against the side of the couch. Your feet/ankles should be level though. If you try this with something too high or too low it won't help much.
3) Get on your hands and knees and gently rock forwards and backwards. Do not go too far forward or backwards. Just gently rock so it loosens you up a bit.
4) Get a tennis ball. Stick it in your lower back or on your gluts, whatever is tense and lean against a wall. Now just roll around on it. Self massage.

I hope that helps. I know how god damn miserable these sorts of injuries can be.

[Sapphire Silk]

You don't have to get an expensive gym membership to get fit. There are lots of simple exercises that can be done at home, and simple stretching exercises as well. Google them; there are lots of examples with step by step instructions.

Never stretch cold muscles. Warm up gently first. Some jumping jacks are good for that. A short walk, especially after a meal.

I do rotation exercises on my knees, hips, back, and neck before working out. Toe touches. Butterfly stretch. Long and short calf stretches. Splits.

My workouts very week to week. When we work on core exercises, we do situps, pushups, and crunches. Be very very careful with situps. If you have a bad back, you can make it worse if you don't do them correctly.

I like the plank. It's a great core exercise.

Don't be discouraged if whatever exercise you do is hard at first. If you're not used to it, it will be. I've been out of Tae Kwon Do for 3 months due to a broken foot. Went back to class a month ago; lost all my flexibility and endurance. But I know I'll get it back in time.

Listen to your body. It will tell you when you go too far. Don't push it too hard until you build up endurance and muscle mass. It won't take long. You'll be sore at first but you should be able to move in the morning.

[Seshat]

Your laptop should have a plug for an extra keyboard. Buy one - they're not expensive. You might even be able to just get a USB keyboard and plug it into the laptop's USB socket.

Then you can put the lappy on top of some books, so the screen is at the correct height.

Gravekeeper is absolutely correct: your lower back pain could be caused by upper back tension, hip/butt muscle tension, etc....

There's also a 'hidden' muscle that goes from the inside of your pelvic bone to the inside of your lower back vertebrae. This is the muscle that's the reason you do situps with BENT knees: if you force this muscle to work too hard, it can pull your vertebrae out of alignment.
If it's tense, your lower back WILL hurt.


You do a lot of heavy lifting and such at your job, IIRC. I'm shocked, though not really surprised, that noone's taught you and your co-workers safe lifting techniques, and how to strengthen your core body.

Get thee to a physiotherapist if AT ALL possible. Tell him/her what you do for a living, and what your current symptoms are. Tell him about both the heavy lifting and the computer work.


There is a 'good posture' stance and sitting position; in which your muscles are all .. well, balanced. Neither too relaxed, nor too tense. Once you find it, you use it for everything.
Every fighting style, dancing style, gym class and yoga class I've ever attended starts with the body in this posture. Oh, sure - fighting wants your arms THIS way, and dance wants them THAT way, and ballet has you on demi-pointe but baledi (bellydance) has you flat-footed....
But the legs, the butt, the belly, the shoulders... all in this particular posture.

Feet shoulder width apart, and either flat on the ground, or just slightly with the weight more on the balls of the feet than the heels. But NOT on the toes, unless you're doing ballet on demi-pointe.
Knees are not exactly bent, but not 'locked'. Ready to bend easily, and possibly just slightly bent.
Hips - there's three main positions the hips can be in. Tilted back, tucked in, and pulled hard in. You want 'tucked in'. Don't pull them in so tightly that you feel it in your belly, just pull the hips in so they're helping to support your weight.
Back and belly muscles - the 'corset' muscles, or 'core' muscles. Again, don't pull them so hard in that you can't breathe deeply. But pull them in enough that your guts are supported, and that the belly muscles are helping to keep the pelvis and ribcage aligned with each other.*
Ribcage/shoulders relaxed, with the shoulders pulled back rather than hunched forward, for maximum ability to breathe. Again, don't YANK them back, just pulled backwards gently.
Head neither jutted forward nor pulled back: your airway should feel nice and open, and your eyes at rest should be seeing directly forward.
Arms can hang loose for this purpose: we're not trying to get into the dance pose to do a foxtrot, nor being ready to do judo throws.

It's very hard to describe this posture in text. I'd really prefer it if you had an expert help you learn it. You should be doing all your heavy lifting in this posture: when they say 'keep your back straight', they actually mean 'keep your back in the beautiful sinuous S curve that this particular posture creates'.



* I discovered, a couple of years ago, that my husband had never learned how to deliberately control his belly muscles.
The very first thing I asked him to do was to try to pull the front of his pelvis and the front of his lower ribcage together. It took him a week to become able to do it at will.
You have muscles that connect vertically and diagonally across the pelvis and the lower ribcage. If you can't yet control them intentionally, gradually work on it. Practice will make it possible.
Eventually you'll be able to circle your hips (front to ribcage, right side toward ribcage, tilt back, left side up, repeat).
Eventually you'll be able to do figure 8s.



Edit to add: Seconding Gravekeeper. Get a diagnosis. If you already have back damage, some of the things which are perfectly safe for a healthy-back (but weak muscle) person could worsen it.
But if you don't have back damage, my bet is that you have weak muscles in the core, and/or over-tight muscles either in the core, or pulling things out of alignment. If my bet is correct, then a combination of stretches, muscle relaxation, and gradual strengthening of the core muscles will fix it.
BUT I AM NOT A DOCTOR. Or a physiotherapist. And I can't diagnose you from here anyway. So ... <shrugs>

[Gizmo]

I would suggest physio and Chiro as a good start.

Most of the exercises I've learnt are already represented here in the posts above though