Has low back pain taken over your life? A message from Coral-Lei Jane and what she did and didn't do to prevent it in White Rock, Surrey, BC
Are you sitting for a living these days? Do you think that sitting is it cars of your soreness of the low back? When you stand up does it hurts as you stand?
When I work long hours at a desk without routine breaks, I need to be mindful of what is happening inside my body.
Are you familiar with the iliopsoas group of muscles?
They are located in the front body attached to your spine, and they are part of what is known as the hip flexors. When you sit for an extended
period of time, either watching TV, driving, or working relentlessly
at the computer trying to meet a deadline, hip flexors are shortened by this inactivity of the hips. As a result, the muscles tighten with the added compression to the hips and leave
the hip flexors at the mercy of oxygen depletion.
In this diagram to the left, the iliopsoas shows three
muscles that make up the hip flexor group: iliacus, psoas major, and
psoas minor (if you even have the minor psoas). The iliacus is flush to the hip, and
it crosses the hip joint. Whereas the psoas muscles work in
unison and they both cross the lumbar spine, lumbosacral, sacroiliac,
and hip joints which leaves the back vulnerable.
The compression on the iliacus and psoas leaves no breathing room, no pun intended, and it risks nasty blockages. These potential toxins that build up are just sitting there, possibly being ignored completely! It is no wonder that the body is talking, or even screaming for that matter; “Hello out there! REMEMBER ME!”, hence, the nagging or sharp pain when you stand up from your prolonged sitting.
There may be a lot of pain that appears to be coming from the low back, but as we take a closer look at the attachments of the psoas (a major hip flexor), it becomes a no-brainer - the hips are attached to the front of the spine!
Trigger points in the illiopsoas, as seen above, can cause pain in the entire span of the low back when both sides are active. Active trigger points are symptomatic with respect to the actual pain complaint. For example, the low back pain may likely be coming from the hip flexor, but the pain is referred into the low back. Whereas, latent trigger points are inactive until they are pressed on, and may not have feeling in other areas of the body, which is commonly known as referred pain. Ultimately, it is a surprise for many to learn about pain in an area that has no known symptoms.
I had a crazy episode of low back pain that happened a couple of years now, which I posted on Facebook, my Shiva Cor Page. I seriously, like many of my clients do assume that my pain was due to something I did to my low back. I had finished an early kundalini yoga class and was vacuuming when the pain, or HELL, happened!
That week I had taught a class about the low back muscles (called the QLs - quadratus lumborum) and thought for sure that this was where the pain was coming from. I was foolishly mistaken. As a therapist, one who usually goes to the front body first when someone says the words 'low back pain', I understood more about how easy it is to be fooled. It was NOT what I had done, but it was what I HAVE NOT done to prevent the inevitable.
This experience has only reminded me to be more proactive with my posture when sitting, standing, sleeping, and those little travel times I now do. Perhaps this includes becoming more conscious of taking nutrition more seriously, which I am pretty good at doing, typically speaking. (Yes, diet is everything too.) Or maybe, it's time to incorporate more stretching breaks during my computer time. Yp, that's the ticket!
Then, there is listening to your body and paying attention to the 'inevitable' pain messages. So, harness your thoughts, and listen deeper within to the profound messages that enter your beautiful mind. The best message of them all is knowing what to do before it hurts. Preventative medicine is the best medicine of them all!
Since then, I have updated my website, ShivaCor.com. Check it out and perhaps come and join some wonderful healing Yoga as well as Kinesiology treatments and a 50% discount! Discover new ways to relieve your pain with many styles of the oldest medicine out there... Yoga!
In this diagram to the left, the iliopsoas shows three
muscles that make up the hip flexor group: iliacus, psoas major, and
psoas minor (if you even have the minor psoas). The iliacus is flush to the hip, and
it crosses the hip joint. Whereas the psoas muscles work in
unison and they both cross the lumbar spine, lumbosacral, sacroiliac,
and hip joints which leaves the back vulnerable. The compression on the iliacus and psoas leaves no breathing room, no pun intended, and it risks nasty blockages. These potential toxins that build up are just sitting there, possibly being ignored completely! It is no wonder that the body is talking, or even screaming for that matter; “Hello out there! REMEMBER ME!”, hence, the nagging or sharp pain when you stand up from your prolonged sitting.
There may be a lot of pain that appears to be coming from the low back, but as we take a closer look at the attachments of the psoas (a major hip flexor), it becomes a no-brainer - the hips are attached to the front of the spine!
Trigger points in the illiopsoas, as seen above, can cause pain in the entire span of the low back when both sides are active. Active trigger points are symptomatic with respect to the actual pain complaint. For example, the low back pain may likely be coming from the hip flexor, but the pain is referred into the low back. Whereas, latent trigger points are inactive until they are pressed on, and may not have feeling in other areas of the body, which is commonly known as referred pain. Ultimately, it is a surprise for many to learn about pain in an area that has no known symptoms.
I had a crazy episode of low back pain that happened a couple of years now, which I posted on Facebook, my Shiva Cor Page. I seriously, like many of my clients do assume that my pain was due to something I did to my low back. I had finished an early kundalini yoga class and was vacuuming when the pain, or HELL, happened!
 |
| Also known as QLs |
This experience has only reminded me to be more proactive with my posture when sitting, standing, sleeping, and those little travel times I now do. Perhaps this includes becoming more conscious of taking nutrition more seriously, which I am pretty good at doing, typically speaking. (Yes, diet is everything too.) Or maybe, it's time to incorporate more stretching breaks during my computer time. Yp, that's the ticket!
Then, there is listening to your body and paying attention to the 'inevitable' pain messages. So, harness your thoughts, and listen deeper within to the profound messages that enter your beautiful mind. The best message of them all is knowing what to do before it hurts. Preventative medicine is the best medicine of them all!
Since then, I have updated my website, ShivaCor.com. Check it out and perhaps come and join some wonderful healing Yoga as well as Kinesiology treatments and a 50% discount! Discover new ways to relieve your pain with many styles of the oldest medicine out there... Yoga!
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