Day: June 23, 2025

Muscular weakness is the true cause of back pain.

Muscular weakness is the number one factor that is overlooked in the diagnosis of lasting back pain. Overuse for one with a strong back, may result in a short term spasm or pain, however after treatment or a few days rest, the back will settle and return to a pain free state.

For people with lasting, chronic back pain, regardless of whether they overuse or rest their back pain persists.

The common blame lies on the diagnosis of wear and tear to the spine, herniated disc/s, inflammation, however these are merely symptoms that were brought about due to a lack of support and postural symmetry.

The body is designed to move, and move in a functional manner. “Use it or lose it” is the best catch phrase to describe why people get muscular weaknesses that result in chronic back pain.  

Most of us live a very sedentary lifestyle due to technological advances designed to make our lives easier. Long days at work seated at a desk, only to retire to the couch of an evening to wind down in front of the television, is the surest and fastest way to weaken postural muscles integral to the support of your back.    

Both back pain and postural weakness does not just discriminate to office workers, with tens of thousands of tradespeople and manual handlers seeking treatment for their chronic back pain each week in Australia alone. The repetitive nature of most manual jobs, promotes over dominate muscles, which over time creates weakness to the postural muscles due to the over dominate muscles taking over their role/ function.  

Muscular weakness is not just the true cause of back pain, it is the reason why people get caught in a chronic back pain cycle for years, often decades. The unfortunate fact being that if these chronic back pain sufferers had addressed their muscular weaknesses soon after experiencing back pain, many years of pain and altered quality of life could have been avoided.

The problem with the standard approach to treating back pain, is that is the majority of techniques incorporated by practitioners only address tight muscles and joints, not the weak muscles. Of the modalities that do address muscular weakness, the exercises are far too passive for the chronic back pain sufferer to restore adequate postural strength. They only focus on ‘core muscles’ completely overlooking the largest muscle groups in the body; the glutes, hamstrings, and adductors that support correct postural symmetry.

In conclusion, no matter if you have suffered from chronic back pain for 2 months, 2 or 20 years if you address your muscular weaknesses you can rid yourself of back pain.

Why does my back keep getting inflamed?

Inflammation is a natural process of healing damaged tissues in the body. If your back is constantly getting inflamed, then there is an underlying factor at play that is causing continuous or repetitive damage to your lower back. This damage could be to the discs of the spine, the facet joints, or vertebral bodies themselves.  Most commonly however, this damage is to the intrinsic muscles of the spine, the broader muscles of the back and its connective tissue (fascia).

The most important factor to note, if your back is not supported, if your pelvis and lumbar spine are not in a neutral position due to poor postural strength and symmetry your back will be under constant load. Your back and its structures, even in a standing or sitting position will be ‘jammed’ due to the gap between the top of your hips and your 12th rib being dramatically reduced. This poor postural condition is commonly referred to as swayback, or an excessive lordotic curve.

Efforts to reduce or eliminate the inflammation, such as nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs, both oral and injected steroidal anti inflammatory drugs assist all in the short term. However the inflammation will once again return if the true underlying cause is not addressed. If the back is still in a jammed position, if the structures are still under too great a load to cope with, damage will occur and the inflammation process (the bodies natural healing response) will once again repeat itself.  

Treatment to the back, such as manipulation of the spine, joint mobilisation of the spine, massage to the soft tissue of the lower back and stretches all offer short term relief. These techniques address the tension in the back region, taking pressure off the muscles, joint and connective tissues resulting in reduced inflammation.

Similar to the concern with anti inflammatory medicine, for the vast majority of chronic back pain sufferers, treatment only offers a short term relief from their pain. The treatment still only focuses on the symptoms of back pain, the tight, painful muscles, joints and connective tissue of the back.  As stated above, if your back is not supported due to postural weaknesses, it will be only a matter of time after receiving quality treatment to free up the back, before once again the area becomes jammed and painful again.

In conclusion

• The inflammation is the body’s natural healing response
• It can be brought on from damage to the spine, discs, joints, muscles or connective tissues  
• In 97% of cases, damage is due to the back being placed in a compromised position due to weak postural muscles.  
• Anti inflammatory drugs and standard treatment focuses on the symptoms of back pain
• Most back pain sufferers become reliant on treatment and or drugs to manage their chronic pain.
• Addressing the underlying cause, the postural weaknesses and imbalance is the answer to fixing chronic back pain permanently.