Back Pain - South Jersey Physical Therapy and Functional Wellness

What Your Back Is Actually Built To Do

Most back advice is a list of prohibitions. Don’t round your back. Don’t bend from the waist. Lift with your legs. Sit up straight. Brace your core. Don’t twist and lift at the same time. Keep the load close. Don’t slouch. Follow all of it faithfully and you end up moving like someone handling explosives — slowly, stiffly, with constant vigilance. Which is a strange way to treat the most robust load-bearing structure in your body.
This article is the opposite list. Not what your back can’t handle, but what it’s designed to do.

Week One and Month Six Are Not the Same Problem

When your back first goes out, the advice is fairly consistent. Stay active. Don’t panic. Most of these settle within a few weeks. That advice is good, and for most people it works. But there’s a group for whom it doesn’t — the people still hurting at month four, month eight, year two. And they’re often still being handed week-one advice, still being investigated for a week-one problem, and still being told the same thing that stopped being useful a long time ago.

Back Pain Explained: Why It Happens and How to Find Long Term Relief

Back pain is one of the most common reasons people seek medical care, yet it remains one of the most misunderstood conditions. Nearly everyone experiences back discomfort at some point in their life. For some, it is a short lived flare up after lifting something heavy. For others, it becomes a recurring issue that interferes with sleep, work, exercise, and everyday movement.