Chiropractor's advice on exercise for back and neck pain

About 25% of Americans are affected by back pain in a given year, and they spend more time at the doctor's office for back pain than any other medical condition with the exception of high blood pressure and diabetes.

Nearly 80% of Americans will experience a back problem during their lifetime. Exercise is crucial for people with neck and back pain.

Exercise is crucial for people with neck and back pain.

It increases strength and flexibility, reduces joint pain, and combats fatigue, and can help decrease lower back pain. Exercise can help you improve your health and fitness without hurting your joints.

Exercise can strengthen your muscles around your joints, help you maintain bone strength, give you more strength and energy to get through the day, make it easier to get a good night's sleep, make you feel better about yourself, and improve your sense of well-being, and help you control your weight.

Being overweight has a strong link to lower back pain. Exercising gets your joints and muscles moving. This decreases stiffness and weakness in the lower back joints and muscles that can cause people to experience lower back pain.

Lower back pain and obesity

Today's society is also facing a huge postural problem. Many of us are now spending eight to 10 hours a day at the computer. Coupled with driving and time in front of the television, we're creating overly-flexed torsos, and this can lead to neck and back pain.

What can help correct postural problems?

Anthony Robbins, the great motivational guru, had a great saying when he said we wake up in the morning and eat our cereal from a box, then we get in our box and drive to work and sit in our box all day. Then we finish and come home and sit in front of the box at night.

As our middle back hunches or rounds forward, the head starts to jut forward with the upper back and shoulders.

This can lead to stress and dysfunction in the neck and back muscles and joints, causing neck pain, back pain, and other related conditions such as cervicogenic headaches, migraines, and nerve pain.

To counter all the excessive flexion today's modern spine is faced with, you can strengthen the muscles in your upper back-your spinal erectors, or extensor muscles.

The muscles in your back and between your shoulder blades pull you backward and help maintain proper posture when strengthened. Your head and neck will adjust in a more neutral position, creating less postural stress on the sensitive muscles and joints in your neck. Exercises such as rowing and activities that pinch and squeeze the muscle between your shoulder blades are a great first step.

Can exercise help reduce back pain?

Regular exercise increases circulation, which can lead to a decrease in pain. Arteries and blood vessels dilate and get blood circulated through them when exercising. This can pump much-needed blood and circulation into stiff, injured, or arthritic joints in the lower back and spine. Consult with your doctor before starting an exercise program.

Certain high-impact exercises like running can cause an increase in lower back pain. Switch over to low-impact exercises, like swimming, cycling, yoga, or even walking if higher impact exercises increase your low back pain.

Many think the tendency when we have back pain, is to not move as much, and often people will use it as a reason not to exercise, and what you want to do the opposite. Light exercising and stretching can help bring down the back pain if you can just work through some of the initial uncomfortableness.

When you're having lower back pain, if you can work through that by starting some light exercising and stretching it can actually decrease the pain.

A note of caution you don't want the exercise to be overly-strenuous.

For instance, there has been some significant research on just the benefits of getting out and walking.

You're getting circulation. You're getting the joints moving. It can reduce your weight, which can lead to lower back pain. You don't have to go out and run a marathon or become a championship bodybuilder. Even light exercise can carry some pretty significant benefits.

In health,

Dr. Jeffrey Gerdes, D.C.