10 Myths About Lower Back Pain (LBP)

[gbg]

Listen nit wit. You can get masters degree in kinesiology.

But yea, you are the expert and not someone with a masters in kinesiology and long list of professional athlete clients.

You have got to be the stupidest person on this board. Every time you say something related to this you are making a fool of yourself. Every professional sports team, special operations force, Olympic team focuses on mobility and flexibility.

 

[VonMeister]

Listen nit wit. You can get masters degree in kinesiology.

But yea, you are the expert and not someone with a masters in kinesiology and long list of professional athlete clients.

You have got to be the stupidest person on this board. Every time you say something related to this you are making a fool of yourself. Every professional sports team, special operations force, Olympic team focuses on mobility and flexibility.

You paid the $699.99 full price for the masters stretching program, didn't you?

You're an angry dummy.

 

[GWS_2]

Stretching is not a warm up! Find out why

Learn why stretching your muscles is an important part of your exercise routine and how to do it safely.

www.mayoclinic.org

Stretching properly has huge benefits if you are involved in a physical activity that requires some flexibility. You will lose ROM as you age. You can slow that greatly by stretching intelligently and regularly. I post the following video not as an example of bad ass-ary, but as an example of movement in an 80 year old man. This is traditional old-school basics. And yes, he has lost a few steps. But consider the average man has been dead something like 6 or 7 years by age 80. And yes, he stretches. If you aspire to be a true senior citizen athlete, you will have to. The kicks towards the end of the video are fairly impressive for an 80 year old.

And being more flexible without question prevents injury. You get forced into a position which your body is too inflexible to attain and something will snap. If you can easily attain that same position with little stress because your ROM is greater, you're good. The increases in ROM that a good stretching program will provide you with are easily documented. And I hate stretching.

Further, if you are out there operating on the edge of ROM, your movements will be slower due to antagonistic muscle tension. You will be less accurate and less precise. Relaxed bodies move better. Tense bodies struggling with the position are slower and have less precision.

 

[VonMeister]

Stretching is not a warm up! Find out why

Learn why stretching your muscles is an important part of your exercise routine and how to do it safely.

www.mayoclinic.org

Stretching properly has huge benefits if you are involved in a physical activity that requires some flexibility. You will lose ROM as you age. You can slow that greatly by stretching intelligently and regularly. I post the following video not as an example of bad ass-ary, but as an example of movement in an 80 year old man. This is traditional old-school basics. And yes, he has lost a few steps. But consider the average man has been dead something like 6 or 7 years by age 80. And yes, he stretches. If you aspire to be a true senior citizen athlete, you will have to. The kicks towards the end of the video are fairly impressive for an 80 year old.

And being more flexible without question prevents injury. You get forced into a position which your body is too inflexible to attain and something will snap. If you can easily attain that same position with little stress because your ROM is greater, you're good. The increases in ROM that a good stretching program will provide you with are easily documented. And I hate stretching.

Why can’t a single proponent of stretching, you know dingdong‘s like gbg, articulate how much stretching is necessary or enough? If it’s so necessary or important, especially for health you would think there’s a metric to follow. How could something so supremely important and medically necessary be measured so subjectively with zero dosage or delivery guidance. It’s completely irrational.

 

[gbg]

You paid the $699.99 full price for the masters stretching program, didn't you?

You're an angry dummy.

I paid zero. I got one on one with Joe for months. 3 days a week. For 2 hours. Very lucky and blessed. Life changing for me. I'm 100% pain free and that's the most important. Being tight was most of my problem but 10 years after a compound fracture of my tibia and spiral fracture of my fibula, I was in constant pain and 6 different PTs and trainers could not figure out why or fix it. My work turned me on to Joe and besides putting me on a mobility and flexibility program, he did alot of trigger point work including breaking up the scar tissue that formed along my tibial fracture. One of the most painful experiences of my life. He would dig his thumbs directly along that fracture site over and over and then flush/massage and then ice. Within 2 months I was 100% pain free.

You know VM, you are a miserable fucking little sweet and delicious bag of sugar. Desperate to be right when you are not. Spewing bullshit you know nothing about.

 

[VonMeister]

I paid zero. I got one on one with Joe for months. 3 days a week. For 2 hours. Very lucky and blessed. Life changing for me. I'm 100% pain free and that's the most important. Being tight was most of my problem but 10 years after a compound fracture of my tibia and spiral fracture of my fibula, I was in constant pain and 6 different PTs and trainers could not figure out why or fix it. My work turned me on to Joe and besides putting me on a mobility and flexibility program, he did alot of trigger point work including breaking up the scar tissue that formed along my tibial fracture. One of the most painful experiences of my life. He would dig his thumbs directly along that fracture site over and over and then flush/massage and then ice. Within 2 months I was 100% pain free.

You know VM, you are a miserable fucking little ****. Desperate to be right when you are not. Spewing bullshit you know nothing about.

I'm not desperate to be right, I am right.

I am completely open to new information and to be proven wrong. Do you have any idea how easy life would be if the cure for back pain was some random movements that didn't provide random results? So far all you've offered is some weird master kinseoligist nonsense and displays of hurt feelings. It's not personal, it's just science.

 

[gbg]

You are still a miserable fuck. The entire strength and conditioning world is wrong and you are right. Delusional.

 

[VonMeister]

You are still a miserable fook. The entire strength and conditioning world is wrong and you are right. Delusional.

A compelling argument, but I have to say we're still in disagreement.

Also, the entire legitimate strength and conditioning work agrees with me and Joe is a very weak and mal-conditioned man both for his size and profession


.

 

[One-Off]

Quite a Stretch: Stretching Hype Debunked

Stretching science shows that it doesn’t do most of what people hope it does. Detailed article.

www.painscience.com

Would suggest everyone to read the article I linked. It is extensively backed up with references to scientific studies.

To VM's point, this-

Exercise is the closest thing there is to a general miracle drug and strength training is one of the best types of exercise, practically like magic: healthier and more efficient than most people realize. It’s also widely accepted as a major part of injury rehab, and stretching goes along for that ride. Although it’s not taken anywhere near as seriously as strengthening is, millions of athletes, trainers, coaches, and healthcare professionals still consider it to be a staple of rehab.



To Gbg's point-

There is really only one stretching benefit that seems to be clear and (almost) uncontroversial: it does actually increase flexibility. Even just plain old static stretching. For whatever it’s worth, people do seem to be more flexible when they stretch regularly for a while. Real elongation of tissue is elusive, and hard to sustain; but it can be done. The phenomenon is widely observed, and seems to have been confirmed by experiments. I previously cited Marshall et al — a decent, recent example — and there are more (cited and discussed below). Less than you’d think at this point in history, though! There’s hundreds of studies of anything these days, but not this.

So, you can get more flexible “for whatever it’s worth,” but what is it worth? Is it actually a benefit? I will start by arguing that is not worth much to most people, even athletes.

The value of flexibility
“I want to be more flexible,” people say. Even when they have normal range of motion in every joint. What’s this about? Why are people so determined to be more bendy? What is it you want to do with that super power?

What exactly are you planning to do with your flexibility?
The fact that there are actually several elastic superheroes speaks to our genuine desire for greater range of motion. But the reality is that hardly anyone actually needs to be more flexible. Most people have a normal range of motion — that’s why it’s normal! Unless you are specifically frustrated because you lack sufficient range of motion in a joint to perform a specific task, you probably don’t need to be more flexible.

 

[gbg]

One person sent me a PM and asked for the stretches. I sent him pics of each stretch by text. He seems committed to putting the time in. I'm confident this will make a huge difference in surfing and in every day life.

 

[One-Off]

I'm now 4 weeks out from my trip to the ER with back spasms. I'm doing planks, push ups, bridges, superman,bird dogs, pull-ups, hangs, trunk twists, squats ....and gbg's self suck stretch.

I'm trying a dumb bell circuit to start weight training (doing to recommended lifts- squat, deadlift, overhead press with light weights), and will move on to more weight and barbell stuff when the pain is gone. One thing the Barbell medicine MDs stressed was incremental training...

Did my 4 mile run today with the stair climbs too. Did 8 climbs, 5 two steps at a time. I think this week I will try pop ups and if I can do that without my pain going past 5 I'll try and surf next week.

 

[Havoc]

My back and shoulders felt tight from surfing today so I did heavy low bar squats and I feel great. U need to get ur squat and deadlift up to reap the rewards. I feel fkng great!

 

[GWS_2]

Why can’t a single proponent of stretching, you know dingdong‘s like gbg, articulate how much stretching is necessary or enough? If it’s so necessary or important, especially for health you would think there’s a metric to follow. How could something so supremely important be measured so subjectively. It’s completely irrational.

How much is necessary is highly dependent upon your body (genetics) and what you are trying to accomplish. That flexibility is necessary re athletic endeavors which require flexibility is obviously obvious. You can't kick somebody in the head if you don't have the flexibility to get there. Is it important for health? It's certainly important for performance depending upon what you are doing. And ROM can be easily measured. My 20 something year old son couldn't touch his toes a few months back. And he was in great shape. He's just naturally stiff and he wasn't stretching. He was body surfing and got forced into a position on the sand where his hammy was stressed. It shouldn't have been, given the position, (pretty mild) but because he was so stiff he strained it. I'm naturally stiff as well, but I can roll out of bed and go right past touching my toes and put my palms flat on the floor. So he started stretching again. In a few weeks he was able to bend over and with his legs straight and touch his toes. Measurable improvement.

Martial arts you need flexibility for obvious reasons. Contact sports IMO, you need flexibility so when you get forced into a nasty position you bend instead of break. Surfing, as you age, flexibility training will become more and more important for you.

Stretching before a workout is counterproductive IMO. There's evidence that stretching cold before a workout actually makes an injury more likely. Wait until you're done, THEN stretch. I have found that if I stretch in the evenings in front of the TV, I wake up looser in the AM. Which makes for a better AM surf. I don't believe stretching does much of anything as far as preventing DOMS.

Strong and flexible seems like a good combination.

The words "stiff" and "old" seem to go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You can't do much about getting older, but you can do something about the stiff part. At least for awhile.

 

[Mr J]

Quite a Stretch: Stretching Hype Debunked

Stretching science shows that it doesn’t do most of what people hope it does. Detailed article.

www.painscience.com

Would suggest everyone to read the article I linked. It is extensively backed up with references to scientific studies.

To VM's point, this-

...

To Gbg's point-

..

I haven't read it, because when it comes to rehab I try to avoid "internet research", I am not a medical professional nor someone with research skills and therefore not well placed to evaluate a study showing stretching is beneficial Vs a a study showing stretching is a waste of time.

Instead I prefer to place trust in medical professionals with years of experience in fixing people up. As I mentioned previously I also operate on the principle of being a compliant patient. They have prescribed me specific stretches, therefore I do them. Of course I would still operate within my personal feeling of common sense if told to do something which seems stupid or dangerous, however that has not happened.

It costs me a bit to maintain myself and I am not rich, but I estimate my consumption of surfboards is fairly modest by erBB standards and I consider the body to be more important than the board. I buy a big bulk package of chiro and massage treatments, some of which is claimable on my private health insurance. To me its worth it, not just for the treatment, but all the advice I receive on things such as strength training, fixing posture and stretching.

On VM's point - strength training has always been part of rehab for my shoulder accidents and back condition. I think strength training is good.

On Gbg's point - like him I have also placed trust in one of those black arts, in his case kinesiology and my case chiro. You might wonder why I would do that. Well its like the comedy video you posted - the family doc does not know how to fix up a bad back - I don't consider pain killers a fix. I was desperate. Going to someone who specialises in fixing up injuries had worked in the past, so when my back tweaked for the 3rd time in one year I decided on either chiro or osteopath - I really didn't know what they did, but chose chiro because it needed a longer study (5 yr degree), my health insurance covered it. Just like gbg's treatment it worked - I have not had one back tweak since I started going over 10 years ago - touch wood. At the end the day, that's what we want isn't it, to get back in the water without pain.

 

[freeride76]

How much is necessary is highly dependent upon your body (genetics) and what you are trying to accomplish. That flexibility is necessary re athletic endeavors which require flexibility is obviously obvious. You can't kick somebody in the head if you don't have the flexibility to get there. Is it important for health? It's certainly important for performance depending upon what you are doing. And ROM can be easily measured. My 20 something year old son couldn't touch his toes a few months back. And he was in great shape. He's just naturally stiff and he wasn't stretching. He was body surfing and got forced into a position on the sand where his hammy was stressed. It shouldn't have been, given the position, (pretty mild) but because he was so stiff he strained it. I'm naturally stiff as well, but I can roll out of bed and go right past touching my toes and put my palms flat on the floor. So he started stretching again. In a few weeks he was able to bend over and with his legs straight and touch his toes. Measurable improvement.

Martial arts you need flexibility for obvious reasons. Contact sports IMO, you need flexibility so when you get forced into a nasty position you bend instead of break. Surfing, as you age, flexibility training will become more and more important for you.

Stretching before a workout is counterproductive IMO. There's evidence that stretching cold before a workout actually makes an injury more likely. Wait until you're done, THEN stretch. I have found that if I stretch in the evenings in front of the TV, I wake up looser in the AM. Which makes for a better AM surf. I don't believe stretching does much of anything as far as preventing DOMS.

Strong and flexible seems like a good combination.

The words "stiff" and "old" seem to go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You can't do much about getting older, but you can do something about the stiff part. At least for awhile.

ever done J curls?
any opinion on them?

 

[GWS_2]

ever done J curls?
any opinion on them?

Never done them.

I don't like the way it looks.

Looks risky re low back?

I don't know.

 

[freeride76]

Ok.

seems a good way to mix increasing flexibility and some strength.

with light weights and attention to form I haven't hurt myself.

I like to do them on rest days, or after a surf.

 

[GWS_2]

 

[VonMeister]

How much is necessary is highly dependent upon your body (genetics) and what you are trying to accomplish. That flexibility is necessary re athletic endeavors which require flexibility is obviously obvious. You can't kick somebody in the head if you don't have the flexibility to get there. Is it important for health? It's certainly important for performance depending upon what you are doing. And ROM can be easily measured. My 20 something year old son couldn't touch his toes a few months back. And he was in great shape. He's just naturally stiff and he wasn't stretching. He was body surfing and got forced into a position on the sand where his hammy was stressed. It shouldn't have been, given the position, (pretty mild) but because he was so stiff he strained it. I'm naturally stiff as well, but I can roll out of bed and go right past touching my toes and put my palms flat on the floor. So he started stretching again. In a few weeks he was able to bend over and with his legs straight and touch his toes. Measurable improvement.

Martial arts you need flexibility for obvious reasons. Contact sports IMO, you need flexibility so when you get forced into a nasty position you bend instead of break. Surfing, as you age, flexibility training will become more and more important for you.

Stretching before a workout is counterproductive IMO. There's evidence that stretching cold before a workout actually makes an injury more likely. Wait until you're done, THEN stretch. I have found that if I stretch in the evenings in front of the TV, I wake up looser in the AM. Which makes for a better AM surf. I don't believe stretching does much of anything as far as preventing DOMS.

Strong and flexible seems like a good combination.

The words "stiff" and "old" seem to go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You can't do much about getting older, but you can do something about the stiff part. At least for awhile.

Martial arts, gymnasts etc all need varying levels of range of motion which comes from a degree of static stretching and a degree of performing the movements. This is much different than prescribing stretching or flexibility as a cure for an ailment...because it isn't. This is widely accepted by the medical community that is focuses on these things. There is simply no medical evidence to suggest that pulling on a joint to a subjective point of discomfort to joint angle does anything useful, and plenty of evidence that suggests that it is doing more harm than good. Another good point is, if you go a couple days or so without stretching and lost some range of motion, you probably are OK without it and this would be a good sign that you are hyper extending a joint.

To use an outlier as proof isn't really a good argument. Look at doctors that still prescribe R.I.C.E for injuries...when we know that ice is the last thing you want to apply to an injury to increase tissue healing and NSAIDS to be effective in reducing swelling need to be taken in the range of 8000mg per day, which will cause all sorts of other health issues.

I'm not trying to discount your kids injury but the other side of the coin is, would he have been injured if he had more range of motion? The easy and honest answer is we don't know. But to take it a step further...there's a lot of people on earth who can not touch their toes without bending their knees, me being one of them. I've never had a hamstring injury and I don't have any lower back pain anymore and a large percent of the population haven't either. When I was suffering through persistent lower back pain I was stretching, and being stretched by "professionals" and relief was never significant, lasting, or in anyway able to be directly related to a therapy event.

This leads to my earlier point. How much range of motion is enough. If this is a legitimate medical necessity, there should be a metric to use. There isn't because all studies point to range of motion as being a non issue with respect to injury prevention. Hyper extending joints with static stretching...or to put it simpler, taking a joint beyond its natural range of motion in search of a subjective increase in ROM has been proven to increase injuries.

Short of a severe neurological or structural issue, more often that not range of motion issues are a problem of the mind, not the body. We believe more is better, or accept some subjective points as healthy.

 

[Mr J]

... When I was suffering through persistent lower back pain I was stretching, and being stretched by "professionals" and relief was never significant, lasting, or in anyway able to be directly related to a therapy event.
...

Ah, now I know where your blinkered view is coming from. Unlike yourself I have been lucky enough to stumble on a team of practitioners who have successfully fixed me up - with one exception a physio who couldn't resolve a knee problem which another one later succeeded in. He may have been good at fixing other things - I don't know after the problem didn't get better, I stopped going and never went back.

Finding a good health professional is a bit like finding a mechanic to repair a complicated car - we don't understand the car, but sort of get a gut feel for whether the mechanic is good or not. Some luck involved. Not everyone has your bad experiences.

The credibility of some of the practitioners who have in the past prescribed stretches to me is not to be ignored. As I mentioned one of them is used by two aussie rules footy teams - in case you are wondering Freeride thats Carlton and N. Melbourne. AFL is big business in Oz and they would not trust their players to quacks.