Exercise Often the Best Cure for Back Pain

Next to the common cold, back pain is the biggest medical complaint of Americans, suffered by four of every five people at some point in their lifetime.

While the cure for the common cold may still be years away, the good news, according to the experts, is that you can prevent back pain from ever occurring, or at least keep it from recurring, by strengthening your stomach.

Unfortunately, most people look at their protruding stomachs, groan and say, “I’ve got to do something about that,” and then don’t do anything more than purchase a larger-size dress or pair of trousers. Unwittingly, they’ve become prime candidates for back trouble.

To understand the lower back, you have to realize that in many cases back pain is muscle-related, caused either by muscle spasms or muscular weaknesses, and not by some abnormality in the spinal column.

Running up your back, parallel to the spine, are the erector spinae muscles. Encasing your front are the abdominal muscles, which attempt to keep your internal organs back and as close to the spine as possible. Working in tandem, the back and abdominal muscles do their best to hold your body upright.

Extra Demand on Muscles

Back problems typically begin when your stomach muscles are weak. Extra demand is then placed on the back muscles to pick up the slack, and these overworked muscles slowly begin to tighten, tilting your pelvis forward in the process. You soon begin to say “Ouch” on a regular basis.

If after visiting your physician you’ve found that your back pain is muscular and not disk-related, abdominal-strengthening exercises are most likely in order.

“Strengthening the muscles of the back and stomach is critical in preventing low back pain,” said Richard Bachrach, a Manhattan osteopath who specializes in back treatment. “I tell each of my back patients,” said Bachrach, who gives each of them a hefty booklet of prescribed exercises, “that if they’re not interested in exercising regularly, then they shouldn’t come and see me.”

Building strong stomach muscles takes some effort. “People think that being recreationally active is enough to strengthen their abdominal muscles sufficiently. But in most cases it’s not,” said Topper Hagerman, an exercise physiologist associated with Sports Performance, Orthopedic Research, Training (S.P.O.R.T.), a sports medicine consulting group in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. “I recommended that everyone do three to five minutes of some form of abdominal work every day of the week,” said Hagerman. “This doesn’t seem like much, but it will really work wonders for the back.”

Sit-Up Crunch

Because there are so many abdominal muscles involved in keeping you upright and your back pain-free, there’s really not one specific exercise that will do a complete job of strengthening your stomach muscles. Still, although Hagerman performs many different stomach exercises in his workout, his favorite stomach-slimmer is the one-quarter or one-half sit-up crunch.

To perform this, lie on your back, feet flat on the floor, knees comfortably bent. Your heels should be 12 to 18 inches from your buttocks. Don’t hook your feet under a chair or have anyone hold your ankles, because this will cause you to work muscles in your hips instead.

Put your hands behind your head and slowly raise your shoulders off the ground, bringing your head up either a fourth or half the distance to your knees before slowly returning to the floor. If you’re a beginner, Hagerman recommends that you try two sets of 10, or three sets of 12 if your stomach is strong enough.

A favorite lower abdominal exercise of Denise Austin, the Alexandria, Va.-based consultant to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sport, is the pelvic tilt. Lie on your back and press the small of your back to the floor, holding it there for 10 seconds. Take a short rest and then repeat the exercise four to six times.

Kitt McDonald, the New York model and actress, has scoliosis, a sideward curvature of the spine, and she’s very aware of the importance of working her abdominal muscles daily. McDonald exercises in her home gym every morning, performing 150 sit-ups on an incline board as part of her hourlong total body routine.

She says she hates every second of exercising, but “I get backaches less frequently now since I started with my abdominal exercises.why I come back to exercise the next day.”