Back muscle exercises are a valuable part of any fitness routine, but should not generally be prescribed with the promise of providing a cure for chronic back pain. Muscular symptoms are the most common form of recurrent back ache experienced by patients all around the world. Back exercises are a typical treatment modality used to combat this epidemic pain condition. However, in many circumstances the treatment will not fit the actual cause of the symptoms and the patient is left holding on to hope in a therapy that will not help them or their pain.
It is critical to achieve an accurate diagnosis when it comes to back muscle pain to determine whether or not exercise will be a beneficial addition to the treatment program or not. The common practice of universally prescribing physical therapy for virtually all diagnoses and symptomatic expressions is illogical and ridiculous. However, in many cases, it must be stressed that this recommendation is occasionally made exclusively in an effort to develop a history of failed treatments which will allow doctors to eventually perform profitable spinal surgery. In essence, many doctors know PT will fail in advance, which is exactly why it is recommended; simply to satisfy insurance requirements needed to justify an operation. Sad, but true.
This essay takes a critical view of back muscle exercises for treating chronic back and neck pain.
Benefits of Back Muscle Exercises
Exercise is good for your body and good for your back. Physical therapy, using stretches and exercises, is indicated for a variety of truly structural back and spine pain syndromes.
Exercise is important to rehabilitate back injuries and also crucial to help patients recover from back surgery. If you are sure that your back pain is induced by a physical cause, then there is a good chance that exercise might be right for you.
Exercise increases muscular strength and allows the back muscles to support the spine more effectively. Exercise also increases the circulation and therefore, also increases the cellular oxygen supply to the muscles. This interesting fact is the reason why back pain exercises are often moderately effective in treating a variety of diagnosed symptomatic conditions. However, in these instances, the treatment does not work because of the brilliance or skill or the doctor or therapist. It works because of a mistake made in the diagnosis!
Back Muscle Exercises and Ischemia
Oxygen deprivation is one of the most common sources of muscular back pain. Medical science rarely diagnoses this condition, even though it is so prevalent in our society. The reason physical medicine chooses to ignore this cause of horrible muscle ache and spasms is that ischemic back pain is often the result of the mindbody process.
Medical providers are not prepared or educated to deal with this type of condition, so they simply ignore the mindbody interactions responsible for the majority of chronic symptomatic concerns. This is changing rapidly as more and more physicians get on board with advances in research which conclusively demonstrate the inarguable reality of the psychosomatic process. However, there are still traditionalists who maintain the Cartesian hardline, mostly out of ignorance or purely economic motivations to preserve antiquated, but profitable methods of care.
Most patients will deny the very possibility of having any type of psychosomatic back pain because they have been conditioned to accept a scapegoat spinal abnormality as the source of their pain.
If the diagnosis is accurate, then how come the treatment results are so poor?
Exercises for the Back Muscles
Exercise therapy can certainly help with many purely structural and physically-motivated pain issues. However, it is not a logical choice for many of the common issues which take the blame for causing chronic back ache.
How will exercise cure a herniated disc?
How will exercise relieve scoliosis?
How can exercise resolve spinal stenosis?
Obviously it can’t and it won’t.
The best a patient can hope for in these cases is general health benefits and maybe some minor symptomatic relief. For structural soft tissue conditions and some types of joint disorders, exercise may be ideal. Just be sure to understand how it is supposed to help your pain before developing too much trust in this method of care.
Maybe you have tried a variety of back pain treatment options to cure your chronic muscular back pain with little or no success. Maybe you hold on to the idea that back muscle exercises might be the magic bullet to help you conquer your pain.
If exercise provides some benefit for your pain, but only short term, there is a good chance that you are suffering from ischemia, rather than whatever condition you have been diagnosed with.
Acknowledging the reasons for this type of pain is crucial to the complete resolution of all symptoms. Instead of muscle exercises, you should be exercising your brain. Knowledge therapy can resolve the causative emotions, with no more treatments ever needed to maintain your health and vitality. Learn to cure your pain and then use exercise to get in the best shape of your life. Why not use your exercise time to build a state of health, rather than try in vain to treat a condition of apparent disease and injury?
