parkour

Move your way out of back pain

I felt compelled to “dust down” my blog after reading an article recently in The Guardian about back pain. In particular, the statistic from the ONS stating that 62,000 people have left the workplace since 2019 due to back pain. That’s quite a staggering figure

Perhaps I was moved to write because 20 years ago this month I bent down to tie my son’s shoelaces while walking to school and couldn’t get up. An ambulance was called and I had to be given gas and air to get me on the stretcher. 

That day will be etched on my memory forever, it changed me, it would turn out to be a gift. My Mum had suffered from chronic back pain for years and I was going to do everything in my power that that was not going to be my story. Besides, I had 3 children 5 and under and my youngest was only 5 weeks old. I had no family support nearby and I just had to get on with it.

Although the advice then was to move as much as you can, the fear around movement for me was huge. There was nothing linear about my journey over the next 20 years. I took up pilates at the suggestion of a friend thinking that what was missing was a “strong core”. I felt confident enough to start running. I loved it but a few months in, I was plagued with injuries particularly foot issues and plantar fasciitis in particular, occasionally my back would complain and I would worry that I would find myself back in that scary debilitating place. I was referred to a podiatrist who told me I would never be able to run “I didn’t have the morphology for it”, I mean really!  I was referred to a physio who prescribed orthotics which I hated and just made everything worse.

Despite my injuries, my love for running had grown and I was frustrated with my body. Enter Chi Running a mind body approach to running and slowly all my injuries started to dissipate as I focused on my running technique. Crucially moving from our modern structured traditional footwear into more foot shaped minimal footwear in daily life and eventually in running would be huge. I became so evangelical about Chi Running that I trained and became the first Chi Running Instructor in the UK in 2007. I taught the technique until 2015 helping hundreds of runners also to run injury free. I went on to run a marathon injury free 10 years later.

The only issue that remained unresolved at that time was a pelvic floor issue, read sneeze pee and urinary incontinence sometimes when I ran. It was not until 2012 that Katy Bowman of Nutritious Movement landed on my radar and the notion of movement not exercise entered my world. In the years since I had taken up running, I was under the illusion that although I was now exercising, I had ticked the movement box. However, over the course of a day exercise was but a tiny part, a mere drop in the movement ocean. I had to face the fact that although I was working and raising 3 children, all things considered, my life was still fairly sedentary.

I certified as a Restorative Exercise Specialist under the tutelage of Bowman. During my training I began to zoom out and understand the bigger movement picture. I stopped running in 2015 to focus on a more rounded approach to movement and everyday walking became more important to me.

Sitting in chairs less and moving to and on the ground would be a game changer. My body is on the stiff less mobile end of the spectrum. I am also tall and extremely long legged relative to the rest of my body. This makes ground movement still challenging and there was a natural resistance to go to the floor but looking at my life outside of exercise was where all the gains would eventually be made.

Over the next few years, I would begin to change my home environment to facilitate more movement for me and my family. We have less furniture, most of what we do have is low to the ground. I had some monkey bars built and a chin up bar sits over one of the door frames. There are exercise props dotted here and there.

I also became interested in other forms of movement, more play based movement and began confronting my fears around movement. I took up Parkour, I embraced the Evolve Move Play concepts, I trained as a MovNat Instructor in 2019 in the first certification for those over 50.

20 years ago, had I been asked to squat, I would have laughed, thinking it was something this body was not designed to do. I now understand that we live in a culture that encourages stillness. I know that when I was a small child, I could squat like a badass but that once I got to school sitting in chairs would begin and that over the next few decades my body would be shaped by my behaviours, my footwear, chairs and the world around me. Then injury strikes and it becomes a gift, if you let it, an opportunity to learn and understand the whys rather than how do I fix X or Y.

So I’m sharing my own thoughts about what I’ve learned along the way when it comes to resolving back pain or indeed many other musculoskeletal issues. There is some crossover on the tips mentioned in the article:

  • Movement over exercise. Expand your ideas around what movement is and think outside the exercise box. Consider your day and how you could put more movement into it. Exercise is excellent but merely scratches the surface. As Bowman says in the article movement like food is not optional.

  • Start walking. If you’re not a walker, start by taking a short walk first thing in the morning. Walk short journeys, don’t be tempted to jump into the car for anything less than a mile.

  • Sitting is not the problem. It’s the hours spent in the same position. As the saying going goes “the dose makes the poison”. There are countless ways to sit which require you to move a lot more. Set a timer for every 15 minutes and change the shape of your body, move your legs into a different position, check your head position. Stand up! If you feel desk bound, consider a standing desk or a makeshift stack of boxes or books to make your own.

  • Go to the floor.  How many times a day to you get up and down from the floor? Think about how many of your joints get moved through this motion. Use it or lose it. The floor is your most underused training tool. Getting up and down from the floor several times a day will nourish your body in so many ways.

  • Look after your feet and I don’t mean in a pedicure kind of way. Our feet are the most overlooked body part in considering whole body health. Our feet are our foundation and healthy, mobile, strong feet are crucial. Something many of us begin to realise too late in life. Your footwear are shaping your feet and everything stacked above them. Research minimal shoes and start the process of transitioning to less shoe.

  • Carry heavy stuff. As mentioned earlier, there can be a lot of fear around movement after a back injury but moving nourishes you. Your spine and the rest of your bones need to be loaded regularly. Earlier blog on carrying stuff.

  • Move for your pelvic floor. Your pelvic floor carries the weight of your organs, sitting on it all day means it’s not required to do the work it needs to maintain function. As already mentioned, begin spending some time on the floor. Use cushions and bolsters to make it more attainable. Move differently.

  • Age dynamically. Age is too often blamed for our bodies breaking down. If you were to see an MRI of any midlife body, you will see pathologies and wear and tear. We have, after all, lived a life. However, these don’t necessarily correlate to pain. Sometimes knowing there is a pathology IS the problem. Move move move. 

  • Educate yourself about your body. You will benefit from understanding how your body parts move relative too each other. For example, have you ever considered foot mobility; how about your ankles; how well do your hips articulate; do your ribs and ribcage move; how about where does your head sit, is it way out in front of you? Sedentarism, modern footwear and walking on flat and level ground have likely impacted all of your parts. Awareness is everything.

Humans naturally want to conserve energy, that squishy sofa, ubiquitous chairs, cushioned shoes, heating, technology all mean we have got used to a certain level of comfort AND we are movement starved. Those aches and pains you may be experiencing are not because you are getting older, it’s your movement starved body screaming at you to move. Pay attention!

Resolving musculoskeletal issues can be simpler than you think, you just need to go big picture.

Ask me anything.

Fit for Life

On this date last year I published a blog post titled Fit for What? which clearly struck a chord because it was shared widely and read thousands of times. I talked about why I had stopped running and wrote “I want to try lots of different things, move in many different ways. Climb a few trees, become less fearful of heights, play more and do it all with a body that is getting stronger not weaker with age.”