Key Tips for Conquering Common Low Back Pain Conditions

Discover ways to continue playing sports and participating in fitness despite having chronic low back pain.

Understanding Low Back Pain and Treatment Approaches

Below are a few common conditions we treat and see most often as performance physical therapists. This is list not in a particular order, but rather shows the most common activity related injuries and how Spark Physical Therapy can help.

There are three ways we attempt to fix and treat pain: a modality, manual therapy, and exercise. A modality typically involves a machine that helps to improve pain, inflammation, and circulation while enhancing muscle activation. Manual therapy is a treatment we use as therapists to fix or heal a condition. We can use manual therapy like massage, cupping, or joint mobilizations to improve pain, strength, or motion. Lastly, we use exercise to optimize overall health and fitness through intentional physical activity.

What is Muscle Strain?

Muscle strains are related primarily to excessive stress on your muscle and fascia tissues. Fascia is a dense network of connective tissue that intertwines within muscle fibers and helps us to move. Oftentimes, you may associate a strain with a tear, but it can just be overload stress that excites muscle pain receptors.

So sometimes you can have pain with mechanical damage and pain without mechanical damage. Strains typically occur due to doing things too fast, too soon, or too often.

How SPARK PT Helps with Muscle Strains

We use ultrasound therapy and cryotherapy to increase blood circulation, promote tissue healing, and reduce inflammation. We also use deep therapy massage to restore muscle tissue strength and reduce inflammation. Common exercises we recommend for low back strains are reintroducing stress with light resistance training to promote new muscle cell growth and tissue regeneration. In addition, dynamic core stabilization exercises while standing can help strengthen your hips in conjunction with your lower back.

What is Facet Joint Pain?

What the heck is a facet? Your facet is basically where one vertebrae meets and moves on another vertebrae. Typically, you feel a deep, dull ache that gets aggravated with prolonged sitting or back-bending movements.

Facet joint pain typically compounds over time due to repetitive spine movements like sports and general exercise.

How SPARK PT helps Facet Pain

We also use ultrasound therapy to reduce inflammation in arthritic joints, allowing you to return to exercise with less pain and better spinal flexibility. In addition, hands-on joint mobilizations help restore mobility into your spine to optimize movement while managing pain. Mobility exercises using a foam roller helps to reduce facet joint stress during exercise and sports. Modifying exercises to reduce spinal compression to your facet joints so swapping free weight training for machine-based training can be a viable temporary alternative.

What is Disc Pain?

Nearly 80% of adults experience low back pain at some point, and disc pain can be a major contributor. The most common types of disc pain are herniations, which typically can aggravate nerves and can cause pain and weakness in the legs. Disc degeneration is another form of disc pain, which usually happens over time as our spine ages.

Most times disc related pain becomes chronic and can reoccur through various aggravating factors such as forward bending and excessive impact activities like running or resistance training.

How SPARK PT helps Disc Pain

Working with a physical therapist to understand how to modify activities based on the location and displacement of your disc can be crucial to managing pain and regaining flexibility. In addition, prescribing therapeutic exercise can allow you to safely strengthen muscles and joints that support your lower back and hips.

In addition, medical treatment modalities such as dry needling, cupping, electrical stimulation, and ultrasounds can help manage pain and muscle spasms often associated with disc pain.

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