Banishing Back Pain...

Yesterday my team and I here at Phoenix Pro Fitness had the
pleasure of hosting chiropractor and fitness coach Austin Lawrence,
and 25 health and fitness professionals, for a back pain workshop.

Mechanical back pain affects millions of people, with 85% of the US
population experiencing an episode at some point during their
lifetime. Indeed, both in the US and UK, a bad back comes second
only to the common cold when looking at GP/physician reason for
attendance figures.

Of all cases of back pain, 70% are due to lumbar sprain or strain,
10% are due to age related degeneration of discs and facet joints,
4% are due to herniated discs, 4% due to osteoporotic compression
fractures and 3% to spinal stenosis. All other cases account for
less than 1% of cases.

What this essentially means is that 70% of back pain is curable
with the correct combination of manual therapy and corrective
exercise. Contrary to popular belief, however, this does not mean
endless stretching of the hamstrings (which will probably add
further problems by increasing rather than reducing anterior pelvic
tilt and increasing lumbar compression),
or improving the strength of your back musculature (which is not a
precursor of back health, particularly in the short term, but back extensor endurance is...), or
doing loads of sit ups to strengthen your torso (spinal specialist
Dr. Stuart McGill actually initiated degenerative disc disease by
putting rats on a trunk flexion machine...).

So what is the answer?

Well, the bad news is that the answer very much depends on your
individual symptoms, fascial status and skeletal alignment. It could be a case of ankle binding, tight fascial trains, anterior femoral glide syndrome, reduced spinal stabilisation, amongst a host of other disadvantaged states..

The good news, however, is that all of these things are easily
identified and corrected with a thorough kinetic chain assessment
and subsequent soft tissue and decompression work. For members of
Phoenix Pro, this is included in your membership already, so if you
have any niggles at all we can straighten them out for you right
away. If you're not a member of Phoenix but would like a full
evaluation, please contact us today on 01483 801150 or
info@phoenixprofitness.com

Similarly, ankle and knee pain can often be rectified in a matter
of minutes.

Above all, remember that pain is your body's way of telling you
that something isn't right and needs to be fixed, otherwise it will
just compensate more and create other problems elsewhere.

Don't put up with pain, get it fixed!

Have a great week,

Charlotte