22 Jul We Might Recommend Walking for Back Pain – Here’s Why
If you experience regular episodes of back pain, walking might be the last thing you want to do. We see this a lot in patients with lower back pain. And yet, Lone Star pain doctors are known to recommend walking in addition to the treatments we typically advise. Why?
In a nutshell, regular walking can help reduce lower back pain. It may be difficult to get up and get going, but walking pays off for most patients – at least to some degree. If we recommend it and walking doesn’t help, a patient can always stop doing it.
Interrupting Daily Activities
An estimated 619 million people worldwide suffer from lower back pain. In addition, lower back pain is the leading cause of disability across the globe. If nothing else, all the data we have on back pain clearly reveals that it is more than capable of interrupting daily activities. That points us back to the idea of walking.
Lower back pain is not easy to deal with. It can make any kind of movement uncomfortable. So it’s normal for people to assume that walking will only make their pain worse. It might, at least in the moment. But over the long haul, walking can actually improve how a person feels.
A study published in 2022 looked at walking, cycling, and swimming as exercises that could potentially benefit people experiencing lower back pain. The three exercises were chosen based on their popularity, price point, and ease of access. To make a long story short, researchers concluded that walking could help lower back pain patients feel better.
What Walking Does for a Person
Walking is great exercise for back pain because anyone can do it without having to join a health club or buy special equipment. It is a zero-entry activity, if you will. As for what it does for a person with lower back pain, let us start with improving circulation.
Any kind of exercise can improve circulation. When circulation improves, more blood delivers more oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. The body gets a bit of a boost in its effort to heal damaged tissue.
Next up, regular walking strengthens the core. It increases muscle strength and tone in the pelvis, abdomen, and lower back. This is important when you consider that the spine needs to support the entire weight of the upper body. It relies on strong muscles to do the job.
Strong muscles better support the spine. That takes pressure off spinal discs and nerves. Strong muscles also make it easier for a person to stand up straight. That means better posture. All these things work together to reduce stress on the spine and, subsequently, minimize back pain.
Reducing Stiffness in the Back
Lastly, muscles and joints tend to get stiff when they are not used often enough. For a person with lower back pain, inactivity contributes to stiffness that only makes back pain worse. On the other hand, exercising reduces stiffness. It interrupts the pain-stiffness cycle that so many chronic pain patients experience.
Back pain patients come to Lone Star Pain Medicine in hopes of receiving treatments not available through their GPs. We are happy to provide the most appropriate treatments we have to offer. Just like our patients, we want them to feel better.
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