The back pain is one of the most common ailments in our society: poor posture held throughout the day, the fact of spending too much time sitting, poor muscle tone our body and low levels of physical activity in general may be the cause of this pain that often has a multifactorial cause.
Can we improve our back pain through exercise and sports? This is something that will depend on each person, why pain originates, but as a general rule, sports can help us to find ourselves better. These are the best exercises and sports you can do if you suffer from back pain.
If your back hurts, go through the boxes first
First things first, and we can not stop recommending that before any persistent pain or discomfort that is not passed in a prudential time, especially if it is in the back, you go to a health professional. It will be in charge of assessing what this pain is caused and of estimating what methods are appropriate to make it disappear.
Finding the origin of the problem is important in these cases: it is not the same in back pain of inflammatory origin as one caused by poor posture. A stress contracture does not have the same treatment as a disc protrusion. The medical professional must be the one who tells us why this pain arises and what is the best way to treat it.
It is also important that we have a multidisciplinary team at the time of treating back pain or injuries : a physiotherapist and a physical trainer working together and in a coordinated manner in a case, each in their area, will allow the patient to obtain better results .
What activities can we practice to avoid back pain?
Are there sports or physical activities that help us improve or prevent back pain? then we talk about some of them.
Pilates to prevent through correct posture
If there is something that the Pilates method can help us with, it is in the improvement of our position , both within the class and in our day to day. And the best thing about Pilates is that what you learn in the sessions is very useful outside of them, in your daily life : Pilates is the intelligent and safe movement.
The strengthening of the core or central area of the body is one of the principles of the Pilates method, and it is worked on in all the sessions, in one way or another. The strengthening of the muscles of our central area , both internal and external, helps us take proper posture throughout the day, thus protecting from injury or disease.
In addition, Pilates is also conscious movement : knowing our body, knowing how it moves and how it behaves in space will make us move more efficiently and safely, spending less energy and protecting our joints.
Yoga to mobilize our entire column
It is not just one of the most fashionable disciplines in our days, but it can also be very beneficial to improve our strength, our flexibility, the range of mobility of our joints and also our breathing. Yoga also stands as one of the perfect complements for all kinds of sports.
Through the different sequences formed by different asanas that we can do in a Yoga session, as for example the sequence of the sun salutation, one of the most popular, we perform extensions and push-ups of the spine, mobilizing each of its segments and going through each of the vertebrae.
The work of the muscles of the central area of our body also helps us to maintain a more correct posture during the rest of the day. The asanas investment, meanwhile, favor the release of pressure on the spine, especially the lumbar area.
How should you train in the gym to avoid back pain?
The training in the gym , either with machines, with free weights or with our own body weight, also helps us to work all the musculature of our back and the middle area of our body, helping us in this way to prevent possible injuries or pathologies
Dominated to work all our top gear
At the time of strengthening our back one of the most complete exercises that we can do is the dominated , with which we work the musculature of the back, that of our arms and also we put to test our muscular coordination.
Something important to keep in mind when doing the pull-ups is a correct starting position that facilitates the movement and, of course, the scapular retraction that will make the rise easier by previously activating the muscles involved.
Oars with free weight or with pulleys
The rowing, with all its variants, whether we do it with free weights or with pulleys, is another of the exercises that help us to work the muscles of the back. We can choose between a lot of variations to train the back completely and to vary our routines.
The inverted row or the row in TRX are two of my favorite exercises to work on the back: in both we work with our own body weight. In the case of the TRX, in addition, we can vary the grip to emphasize different areas (with open or closed grip, or even one hand).
Dead weight to work our entire back chain
Another of the basics of the gym, which should not be missing in any training routine and that helps us work all the muscles of the central area to protect our back is the dead weight.
If we want to focus on back work we can opt for a version of the dead weight known as rack pull : a partial lift that focuses on the last part of the deadweight movement (the bar does not start from the ground, but is already halfway, approximately knee-high, supported by the rack, hence the name) and which makes the muscle work focuses on hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors and back muscles.
