Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about how your walking style may be causing you back pain, or making the problem worse. Specifically, we’ll be talking about pronation and how your foot mechanics affect your back.

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What Is Pronation? We showed you a picture of feet and showing exactly how a slightly inward facing foot affects your weight distribution and your arches. Having back pain as well as a foot problem can be very problematic. Rolling inwards can stretch on the plantar fascia, altered tension through the knee because it has to turn inwards as well. Patella maltracking can also be a common problem.

Sleeping with a pillow between your legs can often feel relaxing as your glutes can relax instead of being in tension. If you have dropped arches, there’s an asymmetrical amount of tension going up the legs. This can also lead to a slight anterior pelvic tilt. Spending a lot of time at home right now may be problematic as you’re spending a lot of time either barefoot or wearing soft slippers.

The barefoot shoes tend to work on the philosophy that if you walk on softer ground like grass or sand, your arches are naturally supported by the ground. Whereas on concrete the impact is greater and your arches aren’t very supported. You may also find benefit in wearing heavily supportive shoes that help hold the arches.

If you do squats and lunges as part of the Phase 2 exercises, look at the alignment of your feet to your shins. Take a pen and draw down the middle of the shin to the second toe in and see whether you can try correctly distributing weight. A common mistake when doing these exercises is that the knee comes in.

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Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about referral pain caused by a lower back injury, this electric pain into the buttocks and leg which is also known as sciatica. We’re going to go through how to help this at home and some tips and tricks!

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What Is Sciatica? Sciatica is an electric pain that goes from the buttocks down the back of the leg, into the calf and possibly into the toes as well. There are a number of reasons why you might have it, but usually it is caused by a dysfunction in the lower back. If you think it’s being caused by piriformis syndrome, please go and take a look at our video specifically on this.

If you treat it as simply leg pain and treat the area of pain, you’re not going to see any long-term results. If you’ve got pain coming down the front of the leg, it’s not likely to be sciatica. If you’re getting it in both of the hamstrings, it might well be muscle pain from something you’ve done.  Commonly, sciatica will also switch sides as well. This is also proof it’s coming from the lower back. You might also feel very fatigued as the body requires a lot of energy to continually send pain signals from the lower back and down the leg, to signify an injury.

3 Steps To Treating Sciatica Identifying injured tissue: misidentifying the pain as being in the leg and not in the lower back. Reduce further injury: using the right stretches to take the pressure off and avoiding exercises that involve forward bending that make the problem worse. Protect from future damage: strengthening to prevent relapses. Relapses throughout recovery are common but you should recover quicker each time. If you’ve had surgery that’s resulted in nerve impingement, it may be a little bit more difficult to deal with.

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Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about how you can fix your slipped disc the right way. This is applicable to the lower back predominantly, but will also be transferable to any slipped discs in the neck.

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Patients can get quite agitated with certain diagnoses in the spine because it can seem incurable, but there are things you can do to help and prevent it from getting any worse.

You should have a nice smooth lordosis in the lumbar spine, a backward bend. We don’t want to eliminate that arch during any exercises or during rehabilitation. The disc sits between the vertebrae and ligaments along the front and back of the vertebrae that helps to support the curve. When we injure the discs, it’s usually through a forward bending exercise. The ligaments become damaged enough for disc material to be able to seep and bulge through.

Forward bending exercises are very often recommended to help with tension in the back, but these can apply more pressure on the area. They continually reopen the injury, which allows for the area to build up with scar tissue from poor quality healing. Sensible rehabilitation through our Back In Shape area can help the area heal more completely. This will help you to understand what you need to be doing and avoiding in your day-to-day life. It’s designed to be done as a sole approach to rehabilitation, not combined with forward bending exercises.

Doing the right rehabilitation is so important that’ll put your spine back into a neutral position. Taking the pressure off the area is vital, using the right stretches in the hips, hamstrings and glutes, as well as the towel stretch we talk about. Doing the right strengthening exercises as we teach in the Back In Shape area. Ligament structures will be slow to show signs of damage, but they’ll also be slow to heal. You’ll often feel better before it’s fully healed.

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Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about how you can train your core properly, some common mistakes that you might be making if you’re doing any kind of core training currently, and how you can build a routine you can be confident progressing.

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What Is Your Core? Think of your spine as a bag of potatoes. People don’t realise that the spine is very unstable in many ways. There are ligaments that provide support, but if you do have back pain those ligaments are likely to be not supporting ever so well. Your core helps everything to stay in a balanced state. If the core is not strong, it’s going to mean the spine is not going to be stable, problems can develop such as increased degeneration, bulging discs etc. Core engagement and training enables you to rebuild your core, because it’s all too common to not think of core training as a priority. It’s very common to workout in the gym but only work on the more vanity muscles, ignoring the core which can make your back more unstable.

Mistakes? A lot of times, core training is considered to be exercises like sit-ups, planks or russian twists. It’s not very often that we use these kinds of exercises in our day-to-day lives. If you’re training for functional fitness or for day-to-day health and wellbeing, proper core training should be implemented. One of the best ways to herniate a disc is to forward bend, twist and lift - this is the movement of a russian twist. Not engaging the core when you’re doing the right exercises - you should be able to feel the core working without needing to add weight.

5 Points For Success Learning to engage the core. If you’re a lady and have had a C-section in the past, rehabilitation to rebuild those core muscles might find it more difficult. When you’re ok to return to physical exercise, work hard to re-engage the core. Anyone else, just try to engage the core is going to be a little easier so work at it until it becomes second nature.

Stabilising the core by challenging it. The best way to do this is in an exercise like a deadbug. Engaging your core and then moving the legs down one at a time may be very difficult for someone at the beginning.  Stabilise the body using bodyweight exercises. Rather than lying on the back, now we’re testing the core in an exercise like a squat. If you’ve done squats in the past without engaging your core, you need to get into the habit of doing it.  Unilateral exercises. Now we work with asymmetry to start challenging the core standing on either side is going to further strengthen it against damage.  Adding weight and resistance. The last one is the fun one. This is adding weight through exercise bands or kettlebells to build strength.

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Thank you for joining us on today’s livestream where we talked about a safe stretching routine for back pain. The stretches we recommend form Phase 1 of our Back In Shape membership area, which you can sign up to by visiting www.backinshapeapp.com. Here you can learn valuable lessons on preventing recurrences of back pain and why stretching as a base is important for helping to relieve back pain.

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Why should you stretch? If you’ve got an injury, you don’t want excessive pressure going through that area. You want to be able to take as much pressure off as possible and this is what stretching helps you to do. Stretching the hips is the first port of call as it can help you get in and out of chairs, on and off the toilet and to move around with comfort. 

Mistakes? What you need to do is avoid excessive spinal movement when you’ve got a back problem. Stretching can often be done badly, involving too much flexion of the spine and just puts too much pressure on the spine. Forward bending stretches can feel relieving but constantly pull apart the area that’s trying to heal itself. This means the problem never ends up resolving.

What Stretches Should You Do? Hamstring stretches to help your hip move more fluidly, stretching the hips as they can tighten up a lot when sitting all day which can cause a forward leaning posture. We’re also stretching the glutes as it helps keep your lower body supple. Isolating the joints when you stretch is so beneficial so as to not recruit your back when doing these stretches. These stretches are incredibly safe and are ones that we recommend to our patients when they first come into the clinic. We very often have people who think these stretches are too much but will willingly do something forward bending like child’s pose. When you’re raising a child, you wouldn’t consider telling them not to bother trying to walk because they don’t get the hang of it after a week, the same is true for relearning how to take care of your spine as it can take time to understand the technique. 

Tips. Be lazy with your stretching. By that we mean don’t rush around doing them, take it easy and lean into the stretch. Support yourself using house furniture to make sure you can effectively relax into the stretch. 

The towel exercise is also a stretch we recommend albeit not your normal stretch. Taking a towel and roll up to about the size of a foam roller.

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Thank you for tuning in to today’s livestream where we spoke about safe squats you can do to improve your back pain. If you’re doing squats as part of the Back In Shape membership area then this video should be really helpful for you!

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Squats are a fantastic exercise as it’s a compound movement. Practicing it can help you with everyday activities, it engages both the upper body and lower body muscles.  To perform a squat, you need to first make sure you’re engaging your core muscles. You should have a neutral spine with your lower back curve maintained. As you can see in the video, as you lower you may pivot slightly forward but you shouldn’t be rounding the spine at the lower back where it tucks under. This is where the stretches we recommend are helpful as if you’re stretching your hips, hamstrings and glutes you should find you are able to perform the squat with good form much easier - you’ll be able to go slightly lower without rounding the back. The depth at the beginning is not important, good form is more important. What you need to avoid is staying too upright as it drives the knees forwards and can be quite irritating for them.

Something that people often do, and this can get worse as you age, is using your arms to support your body as you get up from a chair. You should be able to get up and sit down without using anything to support yourself. You shouldn’t also be launching yourself back into a chair, it should be a controlled movement.  Another common mistake with a squat is that the knees come in as you lower. You knees should follow the direction of the feet so pointing slightly out.  If you can’t quite balance while doing the squat with all these tips in mind, using something to help you get the movement correct. You can use a door frame for this or you can use a support as we show in the video. This can help you build up strength and get the movement correct first before you move on to doing it unsupported.

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Thank you for joining us on today’s livestream where we talked about pelvic tilts and their link to lower back pain. Hopefully this video will help you to understand this better so you know what is a pelvic tilt, what it does, why it is wrong and how to focus on rehabilitation with all that in mind.

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An image is usually taken involving the front and back bony parts of the spine, drawing a line to see if there’s an angle. If it’s a posterior pelvic tuck, your bottom is coming forward and is going to reduce your curve, whereas an anterior pelvic tilt is going to exaggerate the lumbar curve and make it deeper.

If it’s diagnosed inaccurately, this will be done in just a physical examination done by feel. But this is simply not accurate enough so you should not take this diagnosis as gospel as it’s not always going to be the case when you take an image. We see patients who have previously driven themselves around the bend trying everything to fix it when it’s not been accurately diagnosed. Disregarding a diagnosis of a pelvic tilt unless it has been diagnosed with imaging is important if you’re following our rehabilitation. You don’t need to move your spine in order to engage the muscles in the core. Learning how to engage the core properly using vacuums is really important.

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Thank you for joining us on today’s livestream where we talked about the best sleeping posture you can use if you’re struggling with back pain.

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Improving your quality of sleep when you have lower back pain is so important to help your body to heal. We’re going to go through a few different sleeping options for both back and neck pain to help you get most comfortable.  For the lower back, sleeping on your back might be best. You may find it more comfortable if you do sleep on your back is to pop a pillow underneath your legs. This can round the spine so is not ideal, but the aim is to help you sleep better.  Lying on your side with a pillow between your knees. It’s more easy to maintain good posture when you’re on your side provided you don’t round yourself into a ball. Having a pillow between the knees can take the pressure off the glutes.  Alternatively, popping a pillow underneath the waist might be helpful as you may find if your waist is smaller or hips wider, that you get a droop in the middle of your spine. Popping a pillow can help to keep your spine is a straighter position.

For the neck, lying on your side with a pillow that effectively fills the gap between your shoulder and head will be helpful. A tempur pillow or orthopaedic pillow will be helpful for this as long as you have the thicker side in the crook of your neck, so your head can drop back. If you have the thicker side at the back, your head will be propped up which is not going to be helpful. You can make a pillow rather than buying one, just by scrunching up one side of the pillow to fill that gap.   If you’re doing exercises where you’re lying on your back - for example deadbugs or marching bridges, you might find it helpful to have a pillow underneath the neck if you’re experiencing a lot of pain. For the few minutes you’re doing these exercises, being more comfortable is going to give you good results with the exercises, and the position you’re holding it for is not going to be enough to cause any lasting damage.

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Thank you for joining us on today’s livestream where we talked about how to stretch out your hip muscles. Lack of flexibility in the hips can cause us to alter our movements, as well as making us feel stiff and less mobile. Being able to stretch them in a way that’s going to isolate the area is so important, as it’s not going to stress your lower back if you’re experiencing pain there.

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Principles of Hip Mobility Degenerative changes in the hips or issues with any ligaments/tendons, require good flexibility of the hip so you can function more effectively. The hip is stable in all of its range of motion. Often, in order to stretch out the hips, you may overextend the back to intensify the stretch.

What To Avoid In the video, we show you a stretch to avoid which unfortunately is a very common one. Hugging one of the knees, with the other leg rested over the knee in front of you is not going to be helpful if you do have back pain as it’s going to compress down on the discs. Maintaining the natural lordosis is important to preserve your lower back.

Effective Hip Stretch In the video, we show you how to perform an effective hip stretch. Kneel on the floor and move into the lunged position. Slowly move the pelvis forward and keep the lower back curve preserved (do not lean over into the stretch nor lead backwards). Your knees might be uncomfortable in this position, we do have some tips in our Facebook group for combating this which you can find if you’re part of the premium area.

Sitting Variation Sitting on the side of your bed, have your thigh perpendicular to the body, creating a 90 degree angle at the knee. Placing your arms behind to take the pressure off your back. This should be a more comfortable variation of the stretch.

Going Steady If you’re a driven person, or your hip inflexibility bothers you a lot, you may find yourself overstretching or trying to take the stretch to the end of its movement. This can potentially give you other complications like tendinitis, especially if you’re feeling tension at the muscle attachment areas where you’re stretching.

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Thank you for joining us on today’s livestream where we talked about the very best home workout routine you can do if you’re struggling with back pain right now. We’ve put together a plan you can easily do to get your back in shape.

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Understanding The Cause & Avoiding Bad Habits In a lot of cases, back problems are misdiagnosed as muscle strains or spasms, without addressing the underlying cause as your muscles don’t spasm for just no reason. You also want to avoid exercises that might make the problem worse, like knee hugs.

Relief Based Exercises Learning to re-engage the core: your core hasn’t been working to protect your back so you need to learn properly how to re-engage your core so this is the first step before you move onto any strengthening.

Flexibility in the hip: Doing the right stretches that will isolate the lower body and hips is vital to improve your flexibility and reduce strain on your lower back from tight muscles.

Decompression Stretch: The towel stretch - NOT knee hugs. Laying on a rolled up towel, about the size of a foam roller for 3-5 minutes to decompress and relieve pressure on the joints and muscles.

Strengthening Once you’re in a position where you can move around comfortably, you need to get into strengthening to start improving your strength in your core and back. This isn’t using exercises like planks or russian twists. This is engaging your core during exercises like squats etc.  

Resistance Training Once you’ve got a base level of strength with bodyweight exercises, improving the strength by introducing resistance training with either bands or kettlebells to further progress those exercises.

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