Tight thigh muscles can cause back pain

The thigh muscles originate on the front of your pelvis and insert just below your knee joint. As these muscles get tight they shorten, causing both knee pain and pulling down on the pelvis. As the pelvis is rotated it causes your lumbar spine to pull forward and down. This will cause an aching pain in your low back.

To rotate your pelvis back where it belongs you need to release the tension in your thighs. You can do this by pressing deeply into the thigh muscles with your elbow, and then deeply sliding down from the very top of your thigh (where it meets with your trunk) all the way to just above your knee. You'll find a bump just about 1/2 of the way down your thigh. This is the spasm that is causing your low back pain, and knee pain.

Press deeply on that bump for about 60 seconds, and then continue sliding down your leg. If you do that 3-4 times the spasm will release, and you'll be pleased to feel your low back pain easing.

For more information on your low back, go to www.julstro.com. There are great posts in the "Archives" forum.

Wishing you well,
Julie

The Stretch that Doesn't Work

Have you ever had back pain that was really sharp when you tried to stand up after sitting for a while? You bend over, rub your back, and it feels better for a minute - until you try to stand up again! You are rubbing in the wrong place.

As I mentioned in the last message, the main muscle that causes low back pain will enable you to bend at your hip (ie: taking a step &/or sitting down folds you where your trunk meets with your upper leg, at your hip). As that muscle gets tight, you can't stand up without pulling hard on your lumbar vertebre. When you lean over to release the pain, what you are actually doing is again bringing "point A closer to point B" and you are again shortening the muscle, just as it was when you were sitting down. Rubbing your low back doesn't help at all, it just feels good for the minute.

The only time rubbing your low back will help is when a muscle called "quadratus lumborum" is contracted. Also called the "QL," this muscle is responsible for lifting your hip when you take a step or sit down. If it goes into a spasm it holds your hip in the lifted position. But, in order for you to stand up straight, your hip needs to come down, so the muscle is pulling on the bone.

There are good pictures that explain this in The Pain-Free Triathlete but unfortunately I can't get those pictures into this blog. I only wish I could understands computers as clearly as I understand why muscles are causing pain....oh well, thank heaven for "techie's" :-)

Wishing you well,
Julie

The Muscles that Cause Low Back Pain

After working for 18 years with individuals who have been injured in automobile and work-related accidents, and also with athletes from beginner up through amazing endurance levels, I've seen every type of injury imaginable. However, one injury stands out above all other - low back pain!

It has been my experience that people are often looking in the wrong place to find the source of low back pain, and yet working on two muscles alleviates the pain quickly.

The two muscles are the "iliopsoas" and the "quadriceps." The iliopsoas muscle originates on the front side of your lumbar vertebre, and when they contract they enable you to bend over, lift your leg, or sit down. However, when they are shortened due to repetitive strain injury, they pull your lumbar vertebre forward and down, and you have pain in your low back. The second muscle group is the quadriceps, the muscles that form the front of your thigh. It's a bit complicated to explain in a short message here on this blog, however you can read the details in Muscles - A Logical Cause of Back Pain.

The important thing is, you frequently can reverse low back pain, without surgery or potentially harmful drugs. This blog has been designed to help people help themselves. Within the restrictions of time and space, I look forward to working with you, the reader, to find and eliminate pain.