You just hurt your back.
And since the human brain is all about finding the cause, you’ve google searched your ass off and come up with…. a lot of not useful things.
The first and most useful step is figuring out your pain PATTERN. You use the pattern to determine the treatment.
The pattern is more consistent, the actual source is mostly an educated guess.
Here’s the exam I use to help clients navigate back pain*
What are the patterns?
This helps you choose the best treatment. Typically you see 5 different patterns of back pain
“I’m in pain NOW, I don’t want to read stuff!”
Wait, you said 5 patterns, I only see 4
Correct, if you have Pattern 5, go to the ER (Link below)
Let’s break down what we think is involved, then discuss how you can treat them.
As a reminder, this is for NEW pain or a FLARE up, not really for long standing, chronic pain.
Chronic back pain is not a “medical” problem unless you consider medical to be
drugs
surgery
For chronic pain you’ll want our Hip and Low Back Protocol, which you can get for free (along with our other injury protocols) when you upgrade your subscription.
Step 1 Answer these 3 questions:
Is your pain in your back or leg?
Is your pain constant or intermittent?
Does bending forward make your pain worse?
Question #1: Where is your pain the worst?
You have 2 choices: Back or Leg
For medical purposes, we consider
Back - bottom of the butt cheek, UP
Leg - bottom of the butt cheek, DOWN
“They both hurt the same”
You MUST to choose one. You can always go back, but this is to figure out where to START treatment
Questions #2: Is Your Back Pain Constant or Intermittent?
Constant means just that. The pain does not stop regardless of positions.
If there is a position or time of day that alleviates your pain, EVEN JUST BRIEFLY, consider it intermittent.
Question #3: Does bending forward cause more back pain?
“YES” means sitting or bending forward (toe touch, picking things up) causes your pain, also called spinal flexion.
“NO” would indicate standing, walking, or leaning back causes your pain, also called spinal extension.
I’m a visual guy so here’s a flow sheet in case that’s useful for you:
Now you know your pattern, lets treat it:
Pattern 1
The source is most likely disc
There’s a secondary test for this: perform 5 prone press ups
If that makes you better - 10 reps ever 3 hours, live life as normal as possible.
Doesn’t work?
You’ll have to wait it out. It can take 2-6 weeks for the pain to go down, up to 6 months before the pain is TOTALLY gone.
Pattern 2 –
The source is unclear, maybe caused by joint or ligament
Do 5-10 reps of the toe touch for short term pain relief as often as needed. Can also do this seated
You can do any exercises you want, just use a tolerable ROM when it comes to bending/squatting/sitting.
We like our Low Back and Hip Protocol you can get free when you upgrade (LINK)
Pattern 3 – likely herniated disc
Use the same treatment listed in Pattern 1 since this is just a more painful version. It will take longer to heal, sorry.
Eventually the leg pain goes away, then this becomes Pattern 1. Then proceed with that treatment strategy.
These will most likely be REALLY helpful
Pattern 4 – nerve blood flow issues
This is called spinal stenosis (LINK) and usually affects people age 65+. The treatment is to be more fit. This is not easy once you become 65, so ideally you have the fitness level of someone 10-20 years younger when you actually get to 65. The keys to that:
Zone 2 conditioning 30′ 3+ times/week
Strength training 1-3x/week
Be a healthy body weight
Summary
These are generally for new back pain, so it may be different for chronic back pain flare ups. Although it likely will follow the same pattern.
Since chronic back pain is usually less irritable, you’ll be able to start the same things that you should be doing to PREVENT Pattern 4 back pain.
Regardless of the cause, science tells us a GENERAL back pain program is THE most effective at combating low back pain.