If you experience low back pain when bending over, it could be because you aren’t bending properly! One of the most common causes of back pain is not using your hips properly to hinge backwards. This can lead to back pain or a bulging or slipped disc. Don’t be this person, especially because it’s so easy to learn how to fix this.
Today, we will go over the most common causes of back pain when bending over as well as how to learn proper alignment so you don’t hurt yourself whenever you go to pick something off the ground.
Two Common Causes of Back Pain When Bending Over
The first, most common cause of back pain when bending over is the inability to fully use your hips to hinge backward, which means your back needs to compensate and the flexes (rounds). The body is super strong and durable so it takes hundreds, if not millions of repetitions of this compensated movement to wear on the structures enough to alert you of any pain. And the more weight you pick up, and the more times you pick up that weight, the faster the wear occurs.
Bulging a disc is the most common symptom that people feel from repetitive misaligned bending. As you bend forward, you compress your disc, and the disc can only handle so many compressions before it fails, and the jelly in the middle shoots backwards and hits a nerve. Also muscle tightness/weaknesses occur as a result of these poor movement patterns.
A very distant second cause of back pain while bending over is caused from over-arching your back when you bend. This squeezes the back muscles very tight and causes compression to the joints of the back.
How to Fix Back Pain When Bending Over
The first skill to learn to fix back pain while bending over is how to realign your spine and then brace your core (you can train all of these exercises in our membership through our back and core program). Here’s what to do:- Decompress your back through deep core breathing exercises.
- Now begin activating the back muscles (erectors) through extension exercises while co- contracting the deep core muscles and feel the contraction of both the front and back muscles together.
- Use a mirror and discover your standing neutral spine tilt position - remember this should not be too flat, but also not too arched.
The second skill is to learn the hip hinge, or the ability to hinge your body fully from the hip joint, and not from your back. The skill is hinging fully back until your hamstrings stop your movement, while maintaining the co-contracted core brace position (not allowing your back to fold down).The hip flexors and glute muscles will need strengthened and activated to perform this move correctly, and especially with weight.
Could Your Back Pain Stem from a Rounded Upper Back?
The issue of your back could actually be coming from too much kyphosis (rounded upper back). If this is the case, you’ll need to realign and strengthen your shoulder blades so your back can extend to take the excess curve out of the upper back.
Could Your Back Pain Stem from Your Lower Body?
The other possible contributor / cause is the loss of proper angles between your knee/ankle/foot. You’ll need to train proper alignment of the lower extremity and strengthen the primary muscles that hold the unit together.
Does Back Pain Ever Really Go Away?
Back pain can be improved, if not fully fixed, regardless of your past or what you’ve tried. Remember it’s your body and yours to understand and improve. We believe it’s actually as simple as learning the 5 key movement skills found within the MoveU membership, we encourage you to give it a shot and fix yo sh!t!
