Back Pain Myths vs Facts
Summary
TLDRThis script debunks common back pain myths, emphasizing that pain doesn't equate to tissue damage and rest isn't always the solution. It highlights the importance of core muscle balance over mere strength, and refutes the idea that aging is the sole cause. The speaker advises against relying on a single fix, such as a gadget or exercise, and stresses that both physical and mental factors contribute to pain. They conclude that chronic back pain isn't a death sentence and that lifestyle changes can lead to improvement.
Takeaways
- 🛠️ Back pain is reversible, but healing doesn't always mean restoring damaged tissues to their original state.
- 💡 Pain doesn't always correlate with tissue damage or spinal condition. Some people with severe-looking spines have no pain, while others with normal-looking spines suffer from chronic pain.
- 🚶♂️ Rest is not the solution for back pain. Prolonged rest can weaken core muscles, which are essential for supporting the spine.
- 🎂 Aging isn't the direct cause of back pain, although it may increase the likelihood of other contributing factors like muscular imbalances or repetitive trauma.
- 🏋️♀️ Strengthening abs alone won’t fix back pain. Restoring balance in all the muscles surrounding the spine is crucial for proper support.
- 🛑 Avoiding exercise due to back pain is harmful unless recovering from specific conditions like spinal fusion. Proper exercise helps restore muscle balance and alleviate pain.
- 🏋️♂️ The advice to 'just use your legs' when lifting is flawed. Engaging the core muscles is essential to prevent back strain.
- ⚖️ Quick fixes like creams or single adjustments won't cure chronic back pain. It requires a lifestyle change focused on restoring balance and strength in the body.
- 🧠 Back pain is neither 100% physical nor 100% mental. Both physical and psychological factors contribute to the experience of pain.
- 🌟 Chronic back pain doesn't mean you're doomed to a worsening condition or surgery. Many people live with manageable pain and find ways to improve their condition through lifestyle changes.
Q & A
What is the first myth about back pain mentioned in the transcript?
-The first myth is that back pain is not reversible. The speaker clarifies that while tissues may have damage, such as scar tissue or degenerated discs, it is possible to be pain-free by stopping the damage from progressing.
Why does the speaker say that rest is not an effective solution for back pain?
-The speaker argues that rest does not help back pain because the back needs support, particularly from deep abdominal muscles, which become less active when resting. Prolonged rest can cause muscle atrophy, leading to a lack of spinal support.
Is back pain caused by aging according to the speaker?
-No, the speaker says that while back pain becomes more common with aging, aging itself is not the cause. Other factors such as muscle imbalances, lack of support, or trauma are more likely to cause back pain.
Why does strengthening only the abdominal muscles not solve back pain, according to the transcript?
-Strengthening just the abdominal muscles can worsen back pain because it doesn’t address the root cause, which is often a strength imbalance in the muscles surrounding the spine. Proper balance in all core muscles is essential for spinal support.
What is the recommended approach to exercise for someone with back pain?
-The speaker recommends continuing to exercise, as refraining from it is one of the worst things you can do for back pain. Exercise helps restore balance in the muscles that support the spine, and it is important to find exercises that suit your condition.
Why does the speaker disagree with the advice to 'just use your legs' when lifting objects?
-The speaker disagrees with this advice because many people with chronic back pain underuse their spinal muscles. By relying solely on their legs, they may weaken their core muscles, which are essential for proper spinal support.
Can one single treatment or adjustment cure chronic back pain?
-No, the speaker stresses that chronic back pain cannot be cured by a single treatment, such as a back adjustment, a stretch, or a supplement. Managing chronic back pain requires a comprehensive lifestyle change and addressing the root causes.
What does the speaker say about external gadgets or devices for back pain?
-The speaker is skeptical of external gadgets or devices as a cure for back pain. While they might help on the journey to recovery, the real solution lies within the person, particularly in restoring balance and learning how to move and support the body properly.
Is back pain 100% physical or psychological according to the speaker?
-The speaker explains that back pain is neither 100% physical nor psychological. Instead, it involves both elements, and a balanced approach is necessary, incorporating both physical treatments and psychological factors if necessary.
Does having chronic back pain mean you are doomed to need surgery?
-No, the speaker clarifies that having chronic back pain does not mean you are doomed to surgery or worsening pain. Many people live with minor or moderate back pain without it significantly impacting their lives, and there is hope for managing or reducing pain.
Outlines
🧠 The Reality of Back Pain: It's Reversible!
Back pain is not always tied to tissue damage. You can experience pain without ongoing damage, and tissues like scar tissue or degenerated discs may no longer cause pain. The key takeaway is that pain is subjective, and there's often little correlation between MRI findings and the severity of pain. The focus should be on stopping further damage, and back pain can fade away, proving that it's reversible.
💪 Rest Won't Fix Your Back: Get Moving!
Resting is not the answer for back pain. While rest may be necessary for flare-ups, resting too long weakens the muscles that support your spine. The deep core muscles, crucial for spinal support, become inactive during prolonged rest. Using your body and activating these muscles is essential for recovery. Resting more than 48 hours can lead to muscle atrophy, making back pain worse.
🧓 Back Pain Is Not Just an Age Problem
Back pain isn't simply a byproduct of aging. While there’s a correlation between back pain and age, it's not a causation. Many people live their entire lives without back pain. The real culprits are factors like muscular imbalances, lack of spinal support, and repetitive trauma. Back pain can happen at any age, so don't attribute it solely to getting older.
⚖️ Strong Abs Alone Won't Fix Back Pain
Strengthening your abs isn't a cure-all for back pain. Back pain is often caused by imbalances in the muscles surrounding the spine, and simply doing sit-ups or ab exercises can make things worse. True recovery requires restoring balance in the muscles supporting the spine. A person with weak muscles can avoid back pain if their muscle system is in balance, highlighting the importance of equilibrium over sheer strength.
🏋️♀️ Exercise Is Key to Back Pain Recovery
Avoiding exercise due to back pain can worsen the condition. Unless you're recovering from specific surgeries like spinal fusion, movement is crucial for recovery. It’s not about avoiding exercise altogether but choosing the right kind of exercise to restore balance in the muscles. Finding a suitable workout will help relieve pain, while complete rest can set back your recovery.
🦵 Using Only Your Legs Won’t Solve Back Pain
The advice to 'use your legs, not your back' when lifting may not always be helpful. Chronic back pain often stems from imbalances where certain muscles are overused and others are underused. Protecting your spine too much can make core muscles weaker, creating a cycle of weakness. Instead, engaging your core when lifting can help improve overall muscle balance and reduce back pain.
🩹 Quick Fixes Won't Cure Chronic Back Pain
Quick fixes like creams, chiropractic adjustments, or supplements may offer short-term relief but won't cure chronic back pain. Chronic pain, lasting more than three months, requires lifestyle changes. It's not caused by a single issue that can be fixed with one action. Getting out of chronic back pain involves long-term effort to balance the body's muscular system, not just short-term solutions.
🔧 External Gadgets Aren't the Solution
Devices and gadgets that claim to relieve back pain often provide hope but aren't long-term solutions. True recovery comes from internal efforts—learning to manage your body and making lifestyle changes that restore muscular balance. External tools may help along the way, but the key to back pain relief lies within you.
🧠 It's Both Mental and Physical
Back pain isn't purely physical or psychological—it's often a combination of both. While mental and emotional factors can influence pain, physical health also plays a role. A holistic approach that considers both physical rehabilitation and mental well-being is the best strategy for managing back pain. It's unwise to focus exclusively on either aspect.
🌈 There's Hope: You're Not Doomed!
Chronic back pain doesn't mean you're destined for a life of misery or inevitable surgery. Many people live with minor or moderate back pain without it getting worse or leading to disability. Accepting that some pain is manageable, without fixating on a future of suffering, can help alleviate the anxiety associated with chronic pain. Back pain can improve, and there are ways to live a fulfilling life despite it.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Back Pain
💡Rest
💡Core Muscles
💡Aging
💡Muscle Imbalance
💡Exercise
💡Lifestyle Change
💡Chronic Pain
💡Neuromuscular Process
💡Psychological Factors
Highlights
Back pain is not always reversible, but you can be pain-free without fully healing the tissues.
Pain is subjective and not directly correlated with the severity of tissue damage seen in MRIs or X-rays.
Rest is not the solution for back pain. Prolonged rest can weaken muscles, making the pain worse.
Aging does not cause back pain directly. Muscular imbalances and lack of support for the spine are more critical factors.
Strengthening abs alone won't fix back pain. It's about restoring balance around the spine, not just strength.
Refraining from exercise is harmful for chronic back pain. Maintaining activity helps restore muscle balance.
Overuse of certain muscles and underuse of others causes imbalance. Using your core to lift objects can protect your spine.
One single remedy like using a cream or getting your back cracked will not cure chronic back pain.
External devices and gadgets are not the solution to back pain. The real fix lies in internal neuromuscular processes and lifestyle changes.
Back pain is a mix of both physical and psychological factors, and treating both aspects can help.
Chronic back pain does not mean you're doomed or destined for surgery. It’s possible to live a functional life with manageable pain.
Core strength isn't the only factor—balance between all muscle groups surrounding the spine is critical.
Back pain can occur at any age due to factors like injury, trauma, or imbalances, not just because of aging.
The belief that you can fix your back pain with just one thing, like stretching your hamstrings, is a myth.
Chronic back pain requires a persistent effort and a complete lifestyle change to improve.
Transcripts
this week I'm mythbusting certain things
you may hear about back pain or getting
out of back pain they came up with 10
nice round number the first one is back
pain is not reversible getting out of
pain is not the equivalent of healing
all your tissues back to the way that
they were when you were a younger person
you can have tissues that might have
been damaged like me have Scar Tissue
degenerated discs and not be in pain
anymore and that's because the pain is
associated with damage happening damage
currently occurring or possibly just the
threat of danger or damage to your body
can cause pain pain is a very subjective
thing and so there is not a good
correlation with diagnosis or conditions
that we see in an x-ray or an MRI and
pain there are people that have terrible
looking spines that have no pain at all
and there are people that have severe
pain with spines that don't really look
that bad so you can
disassociate your condition with your
pain all you have to do is you have to
stop the damage from progressing and
this is true for any part of your body
so remove the problem and back pain can
go away all right number two rest will
help your back you just need to rest
more this is not true at all whatsoever
your back does not hurt because you're
not resting enough or that you're doing
too much your back hurts because it's
not supported enough and your spine
doesn't have enough support that's the
general most common theme and your
abdominal muscles the Deep abdominal
muscles do not do well when you're
resting they're not active and they shut
down even more when you rest and so you
using your core using your body is a way
to get these muscles activated and
supporting your spine and is the best
thing you can do for back pain I would
never recommend anyone to rest more than
48 hours or someone with a flare up or
an event or episode of back pain because
at that point your muscles will start to
atrophy if you don't use them you lose
them and your spine needs those deep
core muscles to support it so using them
is the best thing you can do number
three you're just getting older back
pain is a result of Aging this couldn't
be farther from the truth yes there is a
correlation between increased back pain
and aging but it is not a causation and
80% of people at some point in their
lives will get back pain but there's
still that other 20% of people that go
their entire lives without experiencing
back pain and you can say they have
better genetics well I got back pain
when I was 16 years old and my parents
neither of them have back pain back pain
can happen at any age and it is the
result of other causes muscular
imbalances not enough support for their
spine repetitive trauma it could be just
an acute injury these things that I'm
listing are more likely as you get older
but aging itself is not the cause of
back pain myth number four is you just
need to strengthen your abs or your core
this is a myth because it's not just
about getting stronger it's not just
about your ab
muscles becoming stronger it's actually
about restoring balance in the
musculature around your spine so your
spine is supported
360° and it is actually a result of a
strength imbalance why many people have
back pain in the first place so if you
just go do a bunch of sit-ups and a lot
of us have experienced this just
strengthening your abs that's probably
going to make your back pain worse and
that's because we tend to strengthen the
imbalance when we just go do a bunch of
strengthening what we need to do we need
to restore balance for support of the
spine and this is probably the hardest
thing to do I could be talking to a a
little old lady never read back pain 85
90 years old does not have strong
abdominal muscles she more or less could
have very weak abdominal muscles and
still not have back pain and why is that
it's because she has balance in the
system of muscles surrounding her spine
this old lady that has no back pain but
very weak muscles might have an equal
balanced amount of strength in her soaz
and her obliques and her six-pack and
that balance around her spine creates a
supportive system that does not pull the
spine in different directions as someone
would like me who was actually in my
teens when I first developed back pain I
was practicing bodybuilding I was very
strong I had very strong abdominal
muscles and I got back pain not because
I was weak or too strong or anything it
was because there was an imbalance in
the muscles surrounding my spine and
that imbalance created problems number
five if you have back pain you just need
to refrain from exercise you need to do
less that is the worst thing you could
do unless you have had a spinal fusion
and you are waiting for your bones to
fuse and you should be avoiding activity
because of this one specific thing you
need that hardware and your vertebrae to
fuse together and you don't want to ruin
the purpose of that surgery that is the
only reason I would recommend doing less
or refraining from exercise otherwise
you need to be doing something and if
exercise hurts you then it's not about
the exercise itself as a general
umbrella that's the problem it might be
how you're doing that exercise or it
might be which exercises you are
choosing to do but there is something
out there that can help restore balance
in the muscles of your core that's going
to make you feel better and refraining
from exercise is probably the worst
thing you can do if you're trying to get
out of back pain myth number six that I
want to bust is when people say just use
your legs you need to use your legs more
you're going to pick up this object from
the floor just make sure to don't use
your back use your legs and I vehemently
disagree with this because a lot of the
problem that we are dealing with as a
population of people in chronic lower
back pain is that we are overusing
certain muscles and underusing others
and those muscles that we tend not to
use enough are the muscles that surround
our spine we're trying to protect our
spine we baby our spine because we don't
want to hurt it and this is how the
muscles get weaker it's a feedback loop
that perpetuates itself because if you
don't use it you lose it and so you want
to use your core to pick up objects myth
number seven is something like this I
cured my back pain when I did this and
the fill-in the blank this might be
something like I used this cream or I
got my back cracked or adjusted in this
way or I did this stretch or nutrition
supplement I started taking turmeric
these types of statements are not
possible ways to get out of back pain
because the lack of taking turmeric is
not what caused back pain there is a
cause of back pain and it is not
something that you can just snap your
fingers and do one thing like get your
back cracked in a certain way and it's
going to fix chronic back pain that
might work for somebody that had back
pain for two days but if we're talking
about chronic back pain which is three
months or more it is not easy and we all
know that it is not easy to get out of
back pain you can't just make one
adjustment or do one thing in your life
and get out of pain it requires a
lifestyle change it takes more than just
doing one thing you'll often hear people
say oh all you need to do is stretch
your
hamstrings and that's going to fix your
back pain your hamstrings are tight so
anytime you get advice from normal
nonprofessional on the street that
involves just doing one thing and that's
going to get you out of back pain I
really wouldn't take that advice myth
number eight when you see that latest
and greatest Gadget or device on
whatever Instagram or commercial or in
the store or whatever and you get that
feeling of hope those things are all
under this same category of being
external things they're outside of you
and the real solution to back pain is
going to be internal it's going to be
inside you it's going to be in your mind
it's going to be learning how to operate
this body in a healthier way it's going
to be
this persistent effort that's required
by you to try to restore balance in your
body and make this lifestyle change that
goes together with getting out of back
pain and typically external devices and
gadgets and treatments and things maybe
they can help you on that Journey but
they themselves cannot change the way
that you relate or operate this body
because that's a neuromuscular process
and that's really what you should be
focusing on so myth number nine P when
you are told or maybe you believe that
back pain is 100% physical or 100%
mental psychological there are people in
both camps I'm going to say that there
are probably both factors involved it's
a little bit mental a little bit
physical maybe there's a scale and it
tips more towards one or more towards
the other and it's going to be elements
of both and I just wouldn't go to the
extreme of jumping into one of the camps
that say ah it's 100% psychological that
means my solution is going to therapy
and I'll be fine if I just sit in a
chair in therapy for three hours a week
that's going to how I'm going to get out
of back pain I think maybe that could be
a good approach and together with doing
some things to improve the physical
health of your body that's just the camp
that I live in finally myth number 10
that I would like to bust if you have
back pain and it's chronic you're doomed
you're never going to get out of back
pain and you are bound for surgery and
you know it's just going to get worse
and worse until the end of your life
well even if you don't get out of back
pain and you can go to throughout the
rest of your life with back pain it's
not necessarily just going to keep
getting worse and until you're disabled
a lot of people have minor back pain or
moderate back pain and they just live
with it actually there are people out
there that are kind of okay with it and
they just go through their lives with it
it doesn't mean that there is any
specific ending that is definitely going
to happen that you're doomed for that
you're going to need surgery and so I
don't know if that helps maybe take a
little bit of stress or a little bit of
just load off of your back for like of a
better term that it's can be okay to
have a little bit of back pain it's part
of us and it doesn't doesn't mean that
you're destined for Doom or your life is
going to just be over someday so just
being okay with some back pain and not
associating it with the
anxiety of the future is going to be
miserable and there is hope that you can
actually do things to get out of B pain
so we're going to circle back to number
one it is reversible and there are
things you can do to get better I hope
that busting these 10 myths that I
believe to be myths uh can just help
give you some insight in what to do for
your back instead of wasting your time
on these 10 things that other people may
have told you or you may have seen on a
commercial and potentially uh spend your
time doing something more effective for
getting out of back pain and it's always
going to be related to a lifestyle
change so remember that and until next
time get down on that floor and connect
to your core
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