Exercising With Lower-Back Pain

Most overweight people have health problems. They think that their health problems are keeping them from getting their daily exercise; when in reality it’s their lack of exercise that caused the overweight issue in the first place!

When you are overweight, your entire body hurts ALL THE TIME. Your lower back gets to carry most of that extra weight on your body. If you already have some sort of birth defect in your back, this can be a little bit more difficult.

Doing certain exercises can really damage your back if you already have a damaged back. You must be very careful! One example is the defect called “Spondylolysis”. People who have this will suffer from it their entire life.

Spondylolysis is a defect in your back that is caused by a missing piece of cartilage that you were born without, causing the lower half of your spine to move around freely. When your spine is moving around like that, your muscles have to do what they can to keep it in place. When your muscles are constantly tight from keeping that pesky bone in place, it can actually make it so you can’t even walk.

It makes your upper back, lower back, and even your glutes and back of your legs sore. So how can you exercise when you live with a condition like this? There’s a magical thing in this world called “Physical Therapy”. No, not chiropractors. Those will cause you lots of pain and make you cry for your mom. If you had Spondylolysis and tried fixing it with a chiropractor, he or she would end up popping your back out of place!

Physical therapy works more on the muscles instead of the actual bones. Most people with back pain are suffering from muscle stiffness, not from any sort of bone issue. The physical therapist will give you a giant rubber band for you to use to stretch your lower back. This is actually the best thing you can do for your back.

If you stretch for 10 minutes before you begin your exercises, you will be able to exercise for a longer amount of time. If your back isn’t bothering you, then you should be able to exercise as long as you want. Swimming is the perfect exercise for your back because there's less strain on your back. Therefore, you can strengthen it without it being so painful.

Anyways, be careful, stretch well, and you should be able to exercise in no time at all. The more you exercise and strengthen those muscles, the less sore they will be.

About the Author

Jessica Staheli Jessica Staheli is a health and fitness nut. She loves to write about being healthy and getting in shape because she believes that taking care of your body is important.You can follow her on Google+.