Low Back Pain Rehab

This familiar ache in the lower back is most often caused by muscular fatigue and stress. Runners who get low back pain tend to find that the pain is recurring – so they’ll ‘recover’ and then the pain will return again a few months later. This is because the inflammation tends to settle on its own over a few weeks but unless you fix the root cause of why you’re getting back pain, it’ll just keep happening every time your training load increases or something in your normal routine changes.

The root cause of low back pain for most runners is a lack of control and strength in the muscles that support the lower back, being primarily your abs, spine muscles and glutes, better known as your core. The long-term solution to eliminate lower back pain in runners is to strengthen these muscles.

If you suffer from low back pain, you need a structured exercise rehabilitation program to fix the actual cause of the injury (hint! It’s not always the back itself that is the initial problem) and get you back to running pain-free.

Strength training has been proven to be the most effective treatment to relieve low back pain in runners, improve performance, and most importantly, reduce the occurrence of future injuries.

This back pain home rehab program gives you a structured, step-by-step online physiotherapy treatment plan with week-by-week strengthening and stretching exercises. There are 4 workouts every week over 8 weeks and over 100 total back strengthening exercises. Each workout takes just 20-25 minutes and can be done at home or at the gym with just a few small pieces of equipment.

This program is specifically designed for runners who are seeking to recover from lower back strain or a mild stress injury. Specifically, you should have confirmed this diagnosis with a medical professional and received clearance to commence exercise rehabilitation.

It is not suitable for people suffering from any type of traumatic injury, fracture, abdominal injury, spondylolisthesis, acute bulging discs, nerve inflammation, or recent surgery. It’s also not suitable for anyone who is affected by mobility and fitness to an extent where they can’t get up or down off the ground, squat to a chair, or balance on one leg.

In short, no. Scientific evidence states that runners with low back pain recover best with an exercise rehabilitation program. Getting strong is your best path for recovery – whether you do that at home or with a local physiotherapist.

Of course, if you are currently receiving treatment such as massage or dry-needling and find that helps your pain, that’s great! Keep going to those appointments and use this program as your exercise rehabilitation to boost your recovery.