The Hero's Journey Through Lower Back Pain

🤝 Hi Digital Travelers,

Welcome back to adulting! Today, I want to review a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

You know it.

You love it.

You actually hate it.

We all experience it.

LOWER BACK PAIN!

Ah, the human condition.

Luckily for us, our ancestors evolved to stand upright to see over tall prairie grasses. Thank goodness for survival.

Unfortunately, evolution didn’t account for the pain I’d feel from sitting 8 hours a day.

So, if you haven’t felt it yet. You will.

Welcome to the experience every adult has complained about but has never told you how to manage.

Grab a cup of coffee (or your preferred drink of choice) and let’s dive in.

👾 Adulting Lesson

So, why am I dedicating an entire newsletter to lower back pain?

Let me show you why from an advanced brain scan I recently got:

The doctor said they’ve seen cases like this before. So I am hoping that I’ll be able to fight it.

Other reasons I’m writing this topic include:

• Writing a newsletter about it forces me to learn how to solve it (Big win for Mike)

• I figured most people’s brains look like mine above

Let’s break it down into two sections:

• How the F*** does this happen

• How to fix it

How the F*** does this happen?

In this section, I am going to review the most common causes of lower back problems in the modern era. In no way is this medical advice.

Your lower back (lumbar vertebrae) connects to your

• upper back (thoracic vertebrae) above

• hips (pelvis) below

For those of you bad with biological terms (like me), here is a visual:

Let’s refer to your lower back as the middle child (because it’s in the middle).

Like any good family dynamic, if the eldest child (upper back) or the youngest child (hips) gets into trouble, the middle child generally gets blamed.

It works the same with our backs.

First, let’s look at the youngest child - our hips.

If our hips have tight flexors. The flexors pull our hips into an anterior rotation.

This gives us anterior pelvic tilt.

Anterior pelvic tilt takes us out of a neutral position and puts stress on our lower backs which are compensating for the change in posture.

This also causes our heads to move forward to redistribute the weight. Known as “nerd neck”.

Why?

Because our body is constantly trying to find its center of gravity. Which means when we change our spine’s orientation to carry the weight - our body automatically adjusts to stay balanced. Otherwise, we would fall back onto the floor.

Simple.

Anterior pelvic tilt is caused by muscle imbalances.

These muscle imbalances are caused by uneven workouts as well as sitting (sitting causes our hip flexors to tighten and even shorten). #ninetofivegang.

Now, let’s look at the eldest - the upper back.

The upper back focuses on our shoulders.

When our shoulders our out of alignment with our spine, we get rounded shoulders.

Rounded shoulders are caused by sitting for prolonged periods of time over a computer. As well as when we don’t stretch our upper traps and pectorals (chest) or strengthen our lower traps and neck flexors.

Rounded shoulders basically mean our shoulders are pulled forward.

With our shoulders pulled forward we once again put our spine out of a neutral position. Similar to the pelvis (hips) - this misalignment makes us compensate for the weight distribution.

Generally, rounded shoulders are caused by anterior pelvic tilt. 

In essence - it starts with the youngest child (hips), then moves to the eldest (upper back), and gets blamed on the middle child (lower back).

How to Fix it:

Now the nuts and bolts.

How can we fix anterior pelvic tilt as well as get our shoulders realigned with our spine to relieve our lower back pain?

Stretching and strengthening.

Simple.

Instead of writing down stretching and strength training exercises, I thought it would be best to go to the sources.

See below:

1) Stretching Your Hips

2) Strengthening Your Shoulders

3) Stretch Your Upper Back

4) Strengthen Your Neck

Loosening your hips as well as getting your shoulders realigned is about consistent effort.

It Is not a once a month activity. It is a couple of times a week activity.

If you truly want to get rid of lower back pain - commit to it.

📝 Actionable Advice

1) Stretch your hips

• Stretching your hip flexors to make them elongated will get rid of your anterior pelvic tilt.

2) Stretch and strengthen your shoulders

• Your hips won’t stay fixed if you neglect your shoulders as it will take you back to square one.

• Stretch your upper trap, rotator cuff, and pec (chest).

• Work on strengthening your lower traps and deep neck muscles.

🔗 Resources

These are not sponsored. I use them and believe in them. They have helped me stretch and strengthen places I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

• Pso-rite

  • Great for hip flexors

• Resistance Bands

  • Great for shoulder mobility and strengthening

• Yoga Matt

  • A comfy place to stretch and gives grip

• Massage Gun

  • Helps get deep tissue worked out - useful especially for upper/lower traps and pec (chest).

• Massage Ball

  • Gets all the nooks and crannies

🎙️ Quote of the Week

Becoming an adult brings a variety of new problems. From financial health to mental health.

I urge you to not forget about your physical health as it is the foundation of everything in our lives.

Remember, adulting is a process, and we're all still learning and growing. So, don't be too hard on yourself if you make mistakes along the way.

Whether you're just starting out on your adulting journey or you've been at it for a while, there's always something new to learn.

Thank you again for all of your support and I am always here for you. The journey of adulting can be lonely and confusing - but one step at a time we can become the adults we always wanted to become.

Also from your feedback - I am going to include a Resources section going forward.

Until next time.

Cheers,

Mike