Aug
27
Very interesting study performed regarding the relationship between anger and lower back pain. Controlling your anger might be another effective tool in relieving pain in lower back.
Trait Anger Management Style Moderates Effects of Actual (”State”) Anger Regulation on Symptom-Specific Reactivity and Recovery Among Chronic Low Back Pain Patients
John W. Burns , PhD, Amanda Holly , PhD, Phillip Quartana , MS, Brandy Wolff , MS, Erika Gray , MS, Stephen Bruehl , PhD
Objectives: We examined whether “state” anger regulation—inhibition or expression—among chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients would affect lower paraspinal (LP) muscle tension following anger-induction, and whether these effects were moderated by trait anger management style.
Method: Eighty-four CLBP patients underwent harassment, then they regulated anger under one of two conditions: half expressed anger by telling stories about people depicted in pictures, whereas half inhibited anger by only describing objects appearing in the same pictures. They completed the anger-out and anger-in subscales (AOS; AIS) of the anger expression inventory.
Results: General Linear Model procedures were used to test anger regulation condition by AOS/AIS by period interactions for physiological indexes. Significant three-way interactions were found such that: a) high trait anger-out patients in the inhibition condition appeared to show the greatest LP reactivity during the inhibition period followed by the slowest recovery; b) high trait anger-out patients in the expression condition appeared to show the greatest systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity during the expression period followed by rapid recovery.
Conclusions: Results implicate LP muscle tension as a potential physiological mechanism that links the actual inhibition of anger following provocation to chronic pain severity among CLBP patients. Results also highlight the importance of mismatch situations for patients who typically regulate anger by expressing it. These CLBP patients may be at particular risk for elevated pain severity if circumstances at work or home regularly dictate that they should inhibit anger expression.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/PSY.0b013e3181835cb7v1?ct
Aug
23
I found this video on Youtube that has a few simple exercises to help with pain in lower back relief. Enjoy!
Lower back pain exercises to relieve pain in the low or lower back. These lower back pain exercises and in fact each lower back pain exercise in this clip will help back pain, relieve back pain, end back pain and even end back pain. These are rehab exercises for your lower back. The tight muscles in your hips attach to your lower back and cause lower back pain or lower back discomfort at the point of attachment. Lower back pain is one of the most common ailments but lower back pain can be fixed in a few minutes a day. Stop lower back pain by trying these moves. This is just the first few minutes of David Wicker’s great DVD, 7 Minutes to a Healthy Lower Back. The other moves not shown here are great too, the ladies stretch, the gentleman’s stretch, the butterfly, the spider, and the swan. David Wicker teaches lower back pain exercises in his classes in Hawaii. Over 200,000 people have taken his classes. Lower back pain relief is his specialty and as you can see his lower back pain techniques are easy to follow and he’s clear to understand. I hope this helps your lower back and ends pain in your lower back once and for all. Enjoy.
Duration : 0:2:29
Aug
16
Relieve Pain in Lower Back with Exercises to Improve Posture
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Posture is one of the key elements with any type of exercise whether functional or traditional.
Here’s why: when the spine is straight with proper alignment then all of the joints of the area that you are working can move and function better.
If posture is poor, it just spreads the stress the exercise creates over the muscles AND the joints because now everything is out of alignment.
This is not a new concept. Hippocrates, regarded as the Father of Medicine, said that one of the gauges of person’s health status would be to look to the spine. If a person had good posture, then for the most part, it was an indicator of good health. If they had bad posture, it would be an indicator of bad health for many different reasons from a muscular standpoint but also from a neuro-muscular standpoint.
From the muscular standpoint, it would be just that the muscles were weaker or maybe too tight and then causing abnormal “pull” within the vertebrae distorting the alignment and causing poor posture. The cause could be because of lack of exercise or maybe too much exercise with the wrong movements creating those imbalances.
When I say neuro-muscular, I am referring to the fact that if the vertebrae are “out of position” the central nervous system (CNS) which is comprised of the brain and the spinal cord, can cause an impingement therefore affecting or “interrupting” the nerve impulses going to that particular area of the body.
The CNS is part of the main “control center” which controls everything within your body whether it’s your internal organs, your muscles, your heart, lungs, everything.
So what are some exercises to improve posture?
Well, it depends on the kind of distortion that you have. The typical distortions in case number one, Upper Crossed Syndrome, are a rounded upper back, rounded forward shoulders and an excessive curvature in the lower back. That would typically indicate weak muscles in between your shoulder blades which would be the mid-trapezius, the rhomboids and your rear deltoid muscles along with some excessive tightness in the lumbar area in the spinal erectors of the lumbar area.
The solution? Stretch the lumbar muscles and then strengthen the overly stretched out upper back.
Case number two of a typical imbalance would be a rounded lower back still with a rounded upper back as well.
So what to we do there? With the rounded upper back, still the same thing. We strengthen the upper body muscles in between the blades, the mid-trapezius and lower trapezius along with the rhomboids along with your external rotators and your rear deltoids.
With the lower back though, what we want to do is strengthen it with some hyperextensions and core stabilization movements on the floor such as the quadruped superman exercises.
Improving the posture is key because you have to make sure that your spine is stable and that your posture is maintained with practically ANY exercise you perform.
That way the muscles you are exercising would be able to work better and maximize the effect of that exercise on the area you are targeting making your training much more productive and also much safer.
Aug
7
Working your core and not just your abdominal muscles can do wonders in helping relieve pain in lower back. You hear a lot about this term “core” as of late. What exactly IS the core? A lot of people think it is just another way describing the lower back and abdominal region. Not true. That is only the TIP of the iceberg!
The core and the term core training is one of the most misunderstood areas in the fitness field today.
There are actually 3 parts to the core:
- UPPER-Core – all the muscles from the base of your neck, all around to your sternum and ribcage.
- MID-Core – the abdominals, internal and external obliques, your posterior oblique systems, your spinal erector muscles, glutes and hip flexors.
- LOWER-Core – all the muscles attaching to the hip complex including the glutes, lower back and hip flexor but ALSO your adductors, hamstrings and ankle complex.
The core structure comprises ALL the structural muscles that stabilize the upper, middle and lower body segments. That is a BIG area. Much more than just the lower back and abdominal region.
Working your abs is just only part of the picture and usually that is what everybody thinks about. They just want that flat stomach, the six pack or to reduce their waistline. These are all good goals and there is nothing wrong with that, but we have to look at how the body functions to be able to learn how to work the area effectively and achieve your goals in the quickest manner.
Working you core, not just the abdominals will be able to accomplish this.
The abdominals only comprise 10% of the equation. All the other muscles need to be worked by incorporating twisting and rotational exercises. That will work the other 90% of the “waist-reducing” muscles that crunches miss!
Using a cable and performing twisting movements, placing the pulley in various positions; top, middle or bottom; and then performing twisting motions are KEY.
THOSE type of exercises will do wonders for reducing your waistline and relieving pain in lower back!
