Understanding Back Pain

I get lower back pain too, and one of the most useful things I’ve learnt is understanding my own triggers rather than becoming frightened every time it appears.

For me, symptoms can be more noticeable around my menstrual cycle.

Higher volumes of hinging can catch up with me even when the session itself felt completely fine.

Increasing my walking volume, particularly downhill walking, can sometimes aggravate things, while uphill walking often feels better.

Long periods of sitting without changing position can be another trigger.

I also know that stacking too many movements that load or repeatedly extend my back into the same period of training can sometimes exceed what it is ready to tolerate.

None of those things necessarily means the activity itself is bad. It gives me information about my current capacity.

This is why understanding back pain should involve more than simply identifying which movement hurts.

When did the pain start?

What did you do in the 24 to 48 hours beforehand?

Has your training volume changed?

Does walking make it better or worse?

What happens after prolonged sitting?

Are symptoms affected by sleep, stress or other factors?

Do symptoms stay around the lower back, travel towards the hip or leg, or change in character?

Patterns matter.

Sometimes the thing that appears to have caused your flare is simply the final piece of load after several other things have accumulated.

When symptoms become more irritable, the answer doesn’t always have to be stopping everything. We can temporarily modify the things that are provoking symptoms, find movements or positions that provide some relief and gradually rebuild capacity. For some people that initial period might take a couple of weeks; for others it will be different. Then we start increasing exposure again and addressing whatever physical capacities may be useful for that individual.

The goal isn’t to spend your life avoiding your triggers. It’s to understand them well enough that you can eventually tolerate more.

And if your back pain is persistent, worsening, associated with significant neurological symptoms or otherwise concerning, it deserves an appropriate clinical assessment rather than simply assuming you need to strengthen your core.

Keep getting the same back pain?

If your back pain keeps returning and you’re not sure what is driving it, a physiotherapy assessment can help you look at the pattern, your current capacity and what you actually need to return to.

Book with the By Design physiotherapy team in North Hobart and let’s work out what your back needs next.