The 3 Most Common Mistakes When Dealing With Low Back Pain
Low back pain is not only one of the most common injuries for lifters and athletes, it’s also one of the most common injuries or issues for people in general, with about 80% of adults experiencing a bout of back pain at some point in their lives.
On one hand, there are many things that you can do while dealing with back pain to not only recover from it quicker, but to continue doing the things you love to some extent while dealing with an acute bout of low back pain. On the other hand, there are a few things that you can do while dealing with back pain that may prolong your recovery, and today, we’re going to cover three of the most common mistakes we see people make when dealing with low back pain.
Mistake #1 – Completely Stopping Exercise
Yes, you heard us correctly! Completely stopping exercise (and even worse, doing bedrest) is the most common mistake that we see people who are dealing with back pain make, and it might be the biggest mistake that you could make (in most cases)!
Completely stopping exercise hurts us in several ways, both physical and mental. The key to most lifting/gym-related injuries is following an individualized plan that includes the rehab drills you need, while also modifying your training so you can continue to exercise. When you just stop exercising, you can become detrained, which can make getting back into the gym after an injury a longer and harder process than it needs to be!
Not only this, but exercise and physical activity is something that many people simply love doing, and is often a stress-reliever for people. When you completely stop this activity, it can have consequences on our mood and overall mental health!
Mistake #2 – Only Doing Core Exercises
One of the most common things that people think they need to do in order to solve low back pain is a ton of core exercises, because many people have been told that back pain is due to core weakness! Low back pain is a much more complicated topic than just core strength, and saying that back pain is simply due to core weakness is a serious misunderstanding about the nature of low back pain.
When people think this way, they can become overly reliant on core exercises in order to feel good, and develop a lot of fear and anxiety around missing their daily/pre-workout core exercises.
Core exercises can absolutely be useful in building up strength, power, and endurance of the core muscles, but they aren’t the key (or even necessary) to solving back pain that many people think they are!
Mistake #3 – Getting Back Into Training Too Soon
This might seem counterintuitive since we said the number one mistake was completely resting from exercise, but this is actually the complete opposite end of the spectrum!
Too many people try to jump right back into training at the same volume and intensity that they were using before their injury the minute they start feeling better, and often suffer a flare-up of their original injury as a result. The key is to listen to your body and slowly build back up to what you were doing before your low back injury.
These are the three most common mistakes that we see people dealing with low back pain make, and if you can avoid them (coupled with an individualized rehab program), you’ll be back on track to pain-free living much quicker!
If you are dealing with low back pain and are interested in working with us to get a customized rehab program to get you back to lifting, running, or whatever else you love to do, click the button below to schedule a free phone consult with our team!
