Healing Your Back May Be Easier Than You Think
Physical Therapy for Your Back
Is Your Back Bothering You? Call a Physical Therapist in Brooklyn Today!
Are you looking for a way to relieve pain in your back? Do your back muscles feel weak? Is your back tight after sitting, standing or lifting all day at work? If this sounds familiar, you may need physical therapy for your back. Believe it or not, every movement you make with your arms, your legs, or your head translates some kind of stress or strain to the joints of the spine.
If you are bending and squatting down to pick up boxes all day but your hips are tight and glute muscles are weak, you may notice an annoying ache in your back. When your upper back is stiff and the muscles in the front of your chest are shortened from spending all day on your computer, your neck may be killing you after a day spent studying for exams. Finally, if you accidentally stepped off of the curb while reading a text message your lower back muscles might be spasming in response.
Whether these symptoms are new or chronic, mildly annoying or completely disruptive to your normal routines, physical therapy can help! Physical therapists are specially trained to get to the bottom of your back symptoms and get you on a program that creates long lasting results.
LET’S START BY LOOKING CLOSER AT YOUR BACK
When we talk about the back we are usually referring to the upper, middle and lower spine and the muscles on either side of it. The seven vertebrae that make up the neck, known as the cervical spine, the 12 vertebrae that make up the mid back, or thoracic spine, and the 5 vertebrae that make up the lower back, or lumbar spine, create a long canal that houses the spinal cord. The spinal cord is made up of a bundle of nerves that arise from the brainstem and leave through channels between the bones of the spine to innervate and carry movement and sensation information between the brain and the rest of the body. The broad and flat sacral bones sit beneath the last lumbar vertebrae and act as connectors between the pelvic bones and the spine. Beneath that, lies the coccyx or tailbone.
In between each vertebrae is an intervertebral disc. These discs transmit forces, act as shock absorbers and facilitate motion in the spine. Loss of fluid in the discs is responsible, in part, for why we tend to become shorter as we age. Sometimes the intervertebral discs can herniate, or rupture, and put pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots causing localized or radiating pain, changes in strength and sensation in the arms or legs.
There are also many muscles that criss-cross the back. Some muscles are more superficial--closer to the skin--and often help in moving or positioning the arms. Intermediate layers of muscles act on the ribcage to help with respiratory function and deep layers of muscles help move the spine. While not technically part of the back, the abdominal muscles are also worth mentioning here as they are intimately connected to the fascial layers of the back and work together to help stabilize the lower spine.
GETTING TO THE ROOT OF YOUR BACK PROBLEMS
Now that you have a better understanding of the structures that make up the back, it’s important to understand that any of these anatomical structures may be involved in back symptoms. Whether you call it tightness, pain, discomfort, weakness or irritation, most back symptoms can be helped with conservative treatments like physical therapy but it starts with identifying the underlying cause(s).
When you schedule an evaluation with a physical therapist, the purpose is to understand when your symptoms started, what makes them better or worse, what might be causing them and what your goals are for working with a PT.
In some cases, a specific anatomical structure may be primarily to blame for your symptoms, such as the herniation of an intervertebral disc or a strain of a specific muscle but often times the underlying cause is due to faulty movement patterns or lack of strength and flexibility in other areas of the body. For example, if you aren’t able to raise your arm all the way overhead but you spend hours a day stacking items on high shelves at the grocery store, there is a good chance you are extending or arching your back further than you should to try and reach a little higher. Over time, this causes excess strain in the joints and muscles of the back and can lead to discomfort or pain.
Because back symptoms are often multifactorial, your physical therapist will be evaluating how you move your arms, legs and spine as much as he or she is examining the specific structures of the back.
HOW CAN PHYSICAL THERAPY HELP YOUR BACK?
Once the underlying causes have been pinpointed, it’s time to get to work. Physical therapy aims to give you immediate relief of your symptoms whenever possible, but most importantly, aims to address the underlying causes to reduce the likelihood they will return in the future. Here are some ways PTs will address your symptoms when you come in for a physical therapy treatment:
Reduce pain, inflammation and irritation: While completely eliminating your symptoms may take time, making you more comfortable in the meantime is an important first step in your rehabilitation. Applying ice or heat, ultrasound or electrical stimulation to the affected area can often give you some relief. Soft tissue mobilization or gentle joint mobilization may also be employed by your physical therapist to reduce tissue irritation.
Improve flexibility: Each activity you perform throughout your day requires your joints to move through a certain range of motion. When a joint lacks the flexibility needed to perform the movement optimally, extra stress and strain is translated to other parts of the body. Your back PT program may include stretching, myofascial release techniques, joint mobilization and mobility exercises to improve flexibility in the back itself but also in other areas of the body such as the ankles, hips, and shoulders.
Build up your strength: Now that we’ve improved your flexibility, it is important to strengthen the muscles around your spine and other joints. Just as lack of flexibility around joints of the arms and legs can lead to pain or tightness in the back, lack of strength and stability can too. You will learn exercises to help strengthen the muscles around the back and abdomen to properly stabilize the spine and also in the arms and legs to minimize excess strain transfer to the back. Having good strength throughout the body allows stress to be distributed across multiple joints and helps to prevent injury and irritation in the future.
Optimize your movement: Reducing inflammation and pain and balancing strength and flexibility across the body are only the first steps to treating your back. Many of the tasks we do throughout the day require complex, multi joint movements. Just think about how many joints are moving and muscles are working when you reach down to lift a box off the floor or serve a tennis ball at the beginning of a point. Learning proper biomechanics and enhancing the neuromuscular control of joints and muscles is an essential component of healing and preventing back injuries. Physical therapists are movement experts and through analyzing your movements, can guide you in improving how you move and train your muscles to perform those movements in the safest and most effective way possible.
While back symptoms can be disruptive to your daily life, conservative treatments such as physical therapy are often highly effective. Physical therapists can identify the myriad of factors contributing to your specific back symptoms and provide you with a rehabilitation program to improve them now and help prevent them in the future. A physical therapist at Evolve can help you get on the road to healing your back.
Click here for more information about physical therapy for upper and lower back pain
About EvolveNY-
Brooklyn's Premier Holistic Physical Therapy Clinics- There’s physical therapy, there’s training, and then there’s EVOLVE. We use the science of biomechanics merged with fitness to help our patients get better and stay better!
First we evaluate, then we heal, then we strengthen our clients so they can reach their goals, feel better, and live happier lives. We do so by utilizing a range of core techniques and specialized treatments to reduce pain, improve mobility, enhance physical strength and deal with the underlying issues, not just the pain itself.
Multiple Locations!
https://EvolveNY.com
