If you have ever stood up grabbing your low back like this:.
Then you may appreciate and find yourself falling into some of these stats:
- Back Pain is the single largest cause for disabilities worldwide?
- Experts estimate that 80% of all people will experience back pain at some point in their life.
- The health care costs associated with Low-back pain for Americans alone is estimated to be $50 billion every year
HOLY SMOKES, right?
Here’s the thing, You don’t have to be one of the long term sufferers. Not when you have an arsenal of physical activities and training that can help to reduce the pressure on your back and strengthen the supporting muscles.
Guess what!?!?
Yoga Can Help with Back Pain
The best news out of all these dreary stats is that you can do something about the back pain (usually). The worst news about this is that it requires work. Every.Single.Day.
I tell you this because I know yoga can help you, but you have to be willing to do the work. Unfortunately, it’s not like taking a couple of drops of CBD, and then never having to feel pain again. Nope, it’s something that you have to do nearly every day, and when you get stronger, you’ll find that you notice if you skip a day.
Yoga Strengthens the Muscles Responsible for Stabilizing Your Back, This Reduces the Work Load on Your Back
Yoga can definitely strengthen the muscles in your back and in your core (very complimentary muscles that help your back to work properly.) Oftentimes, these muscles are working together in one pose, helping to strengthen your entire body root to stem. For instance, when you are practicing a balance posture like Dekasana (or Airplane pose) you have to have your core super engaged to be able to balance basically in a horizontal position on one leg.
Guess what, that’s same pose is also working your glutes, calves, shoulders and definitely your brain muscle. If you don’t have your core engaged, then your back will try to do the work, and your glutes will try to over compensate, and the next thing you know, you’ll feel pain and you may not be able to hold the balance. (Isn’t it amazing how your body compensates for things like that?)
You Do Not Have to Live in Pain
Unfortunately, we get a lot of people into the studio that have all but given up on living a pain free life. It’s a very hard discussion because I know what it is like to live in constant back pain. I have a herniated disc in my L5 and I’ve had 8 rounds of steroid shots to help with it. Guess what, nothing helped like yoga. However, here’s the other surprise, I have to practice every single day, and sometimes, if I haven’t practiced or if I fall, my back will hurt again! The difference is, I have the tools in place to help reduce the severity of that pain, and to help reduce the time I spend in pain.
I’d love to share those tools with you! If you are interested in seeing how yoga can help you, I invite you to take this quiz. Once you’ve completed it, I will send you a personalized video with at least one exercise that you can do today, to start you on your journey to living a pain free life. What do you have to lose except pain?