EFFORTLESS Back Pain Solutions (eBook)

1INTRODUCTION TO BACK PAIN

Do you suffer from back pain, sometimes have a lumbago, or know what it’s like to have constant tension in your back or neck? You’re by no means alone. An estimated 80% of people in the western world experience back pain at least once in their life. Therefore, back pain is considered one of the most common widespread ailments of our time.

There is no doubt that this is justified if one considers that it is the second most common reason why people in the western world consult a doctor after the flu. Despite our constant medical progress, we cannot get the problem under control.

The main cause of back pain is our everyday life—lots of negative stress and too little movement. Evolution has not kept pace with the rapid development of the industrial age, so the human body has not yet adapted to the high amount of sitting time and the relatively little movement as well as the hectic lifestyle.

In addition, technology, such as computers, tablets, smartphones, and televisions, further facilitate our lack of movement. And the whole thing begins as a kid, when the child spends hours sitting in school, then sits in front of the TV to play computer games, and in between “hangs out” with the smartphone, while not having enough balancing movement anymore. It is not surprising that about 40% of all 14-year-olds have already experienced some type of back pain.

The need to take countermeasures against this development is probably greater than ever before. But out of all the things we’re getting bombarded with nowadays, what is the right approach to take? And why should you care about your back, if you don’t have any (bigger) problems yet?

Although all human beings must deal with the same laws of gravity, each one has their own individual areas of overload, which are based on the respective habits of posture and movement, injury histories, and body proportions. These may not be noticeable at first, but with time—often only after many years and in combination with other causes (will be explained in more detail in this book)—tension or even pain can develop. It makes sense to take preventive measures against these developments.

Moreover, a more balanced posture leads to more balanced breathing which leads to more balanced mental attitude. Since all systems work best when in balance, this will enable you to live your most energetic life and release your full potential. Taking specific action to bring more balance into your body will therefore help you to empower all areas of your life.

Nevertheless, if we don’t take action and symptoms occur, we usually like to get rid of them as fast as possible and prefer a “quick fix,” like pills or injections. However, these usually only suppress the symptoms and do not treat their real causes.

Years of unhealthy behavior and a lack of exercise should be compensated for in a few minutes (e.g., by getting a massage or adjusting the spine), and the effects should also be retained permanently without having to change any behaviors. But that’s usually not the case. They may help in the short term, but after a few days, the pain returns or even worsens. You will probably not experience any sustained relief from back pain unless those methods are accompanied by increased physical activity or other long-term habit changes.

But what are those long-term habit changes, and which ones fit you best?

1.1MY WAY TO SUSTAINED BACK HEALTH

I have suffered from recurring back pain since I was 14 years old. Consequently, I started looking for answers to this question quite early, but I couldn’t even determine where the problems came from, let alone how I could relieve the pain. People repeatedly told me, that I’m not supposed to be in such pain at my age. So, I started to suppress the pain and told myself, I just have to learn to live with it. However, this thinking meant I never tackled the problem, and I ended up suffering two herniated discs 10 years later.

In December 2008, while auditioning for a possible soccer scholarship in the US, I noticed during a twist that something had happened in my lower back. When I lay down briefly after training to rest for the next afternoon session, I felt the pain in my back getting worse, and when I wanted to get up, I realized I couldn’t. I was only able to walk completely bent over; I had extreme pain, and, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t play any longer. Since the coaches were only there to watch us for that day, my dream of the scholarship was over.

In addition, I had financed my studies from playing soccer and still had to pass the last practical exams of my sports studies. The timing couldn’t have been more unfortunate. Even though I was still having difficulty standing up and still experiencing pain, only two weeks later, I managed to get onto the soccer field again. In competitive sports, there’s always a constant battle for the spots in the team, and health is often put aside as a consequence.

About a month later, I became aware of the effects an unhealthy back can have on the rest of the body if you continue to push through the pain. I suffered severe cartilage and meniscus damage in my left knee as a result of the constant, high stresses of daily soccer practice and the many physical classes in sports studies. Today I understand that the back is connected to the rest of the body, and that an unhealthy back can also have an effect on other parts of the body, especially the knees. Similar to back pain, knee pain often results from stiff hips, and as soon as the system experiences pain, movement patterns are altered, leading to the overstraining of certain joints.

After one and a half years of rehabilitation training and two surgeries, my doctor suggested that I quit my soccer career because he was afraid the problems would get worse. He also suggested that I not become a fitness trainer, but rather should look for a more sedentary profession. He explained to me that an almost completely removed outer meniscus and such a large piece of cartilage missing in the main load zone of my knee meant that now there is bone on bone, and it would only be a matter of time before I needed an artificial knee joint.

This doctor’s perspective could actually have been very counterproductive, and, if I had followed it, could have had hindering effects on my recovery and pain relief, as I will explain later.

Fortunately, it was not an option for me to surrender to this fate, so I refused to accept the diagnosis and was determined to continue living an active lifestyle. I decided not to follow the doctor’s advice and instead continued training in this area outside of my sports studies.

Another big dream of mine, besides a career as a professional soccer player, was to travel the world. Due to my studies and competitive sports, however, this had never been possible for me before. In retrospect, I realized that when one door closes, another one opens. I was given the opportunity to spend a semester abroad in Santa Barbara, California, before traveling around the world for another six months.

For my master’s thesis about the soccer in the US and all the further training I had to complete, I had reasons to travel again and again. These opportunities were made possible by my injuries, and I was even able to learn from and interview some of the greatest back experts in the world. These included back expert Prof. Dr. Stuart McGill, chiropractor Dr. Eric Goodman, fascia researcher Robert Schleip, and posture expert Esther Gokhale.

I really wanted to discover the true causes of back problems and what new—including traditional—training and therapy approaches there had been so far. I also dealt with topics such as nutrition, pain research, and psychosomatics. The human behavior expert Dr. John Demartini, in particular, was able to provide me with valuable knowledge about the latter.

I’ve also studied and tested all known therapy and training approaches such as yoga, Pilates, physiotherapy, back pain classes, and chiropractic, but I’ve discovered that each person has their own individual problems and deficits, so that one particular approach cannot help everyone.

Integrating various approaches and practicing a training program tailored to my functional movement deficits helped me to finally get rid of my own back problems completely.

Science is now in agreement that the real causes of back pain, especially if chronic or recurring, go far beyond our biological understanding (causes are genetics, biomechanics, age, etc.), namely that psychological (e.g., stress, fear, mood) and social factors (e.g., cultural, socioeconomical, environmental) also increase the risk for chronic back problems. From a purely biological understanding, we can’t answer the question why someone has more pain on some days and less pain on others, although the physical strain substantially stays the same.

I came to the answer using the biopsychosocial model of pain used by leading experts worldwide to explain the causes of back pain, and this model will be the basis for this book. In addition to the biological aspect (e.g., damage to the spine), this model also takes into account psychological and social aspects, which...