Chronic lower back pain can really decrease the quality of life. Many people experience chronic lower back pain and have tried traditional rehab modalities to overcome it. These rehab treatments include lower back stretches, chiropractic care, acupuncture, and massage therapy, among others. Although these things might supply short-term relief, the back pain tends to return after a while.
What if there was a long-term back pain relief solution to getting rid of lower back pain for good? This is what Functional Patterns has to offer. So let’s discuss back pain causes, the failures of traditional rehab, and how a biomechanics-based approach can be the natural back pain relief you have been searching for.
There can be many causes of lower back pain, including injury, genetics, wear and tear, surgery, scoliosis, and the list goes on. The real answer comes down to how your body moves as a system, a.k.a. your movement mechanics. If you have poor movement mechanics, you will likely have joint friction. This friction over time will cause inflammation. The inflammation will likely cause more compensatory movement patterns, which will in turn create even more joint inflammation. So, as you can see, it all comes down to being able to move properly. The more efficient and balanced your movement is, the less compression you will experience in your joints. If you can walk, run, and do anything with good biomechanics, then the likelihood is that you will not experience as much lower back pain.
This is what we see when people start to employ Functional Patterns training in their lives. They improve their walking biomechanics, which decreases friction in their joints, which ultimately leads to the elimination of their chronic lower back pain.
If you have chronic lower back pain, it can be frustrating not to have the answers to the problem. You may have tried things such as stretching routines, core strength exercises, strength training, massage, weightlifting, and the list goes on.
You may have even seen a back pain specialist and been recommended back surgery to manage your lower back pain. And while some of these things may help for a little while, the lower back pain seems to return again and again. These modalities are not all bad, but they do not solve the root cause of lower back pain, which is poor movement mechanics. The body works as an interconnected system and needs to be trained in a way that increases integration. Isolated back exercises and fixating on the lower back area will never fix the problem because the spine is connected to the rest of the body. The Functional Patterns approach rewires your movement patterns in a way that decreases joint compression and increases core stability and postural strength in the places where they are needed most. This is done by optimizing the gait cycle (how you walk and run).
By analyzing gait, we are able to identify biomechanical imbalances and dysfunction that are creating friction in your spine, which contributes to your back pain symptoms. The big idea is that lower back pain is a symptom of dysfunctional movement, not the problem itself.
The human body is designed to stand, walk, run, and throw. When you look at the anatomy, it is obvious that this is the case. All problems in the body can be identified in how you walk and run. You cannot create postural alignment without correcting how you move through space. If every step you take is a high-quality movement pattern, and perfectly symmetrical on both sides, the likelihood is that you will be moving without pain or compression. When we break down the gait cycle, we can see many different aspects of movement, including rotation.
Many pain management specialists, including physical therapists and chiropractors, do not account for and do not improve rotational strength in the context of walking and running. This is not the only piece to the puzzle, but it is a large factor in eliminating your chronic lower back pain for good. If you want to eliminate your lower back pain, you will need to learn how to move with proper biomechanics so that there is not so much friction and compression in your joints and lumbar spine. Optimizing the gait cycle is the way to do this, and that is exactly what we do at Functional Patterns.
