the CRAIG VAN cast
Hey, I’m Craig. I've dedicated more than a decade to understanding the human spine. Now I’m sharing what I’ve learnt. Get started with my SPINE STRENGTH project - Part 1 is free. Subscribe and you’ll receive my work as I release it.
the CRAIG VAN cast
58 | From Symptom to Source, Back Pain
Struggling with persistent back pain and can't figure out why? In today’s deep dive, we're shining a light on the silent destroyer of spinal health - our sitting habits. With expert insights and evidence-based solutions, this episode is your guide to understanding and combating the root causes of spinal discomfort.
Quick Summary: Discover the hidden reasons behind back pain and how simple (not easy) lifestyle adjustments can lead to significant improvements in your spinal health.
What This Episode Covers:
- The Real Culprit: We're peeling back the layers on how everyday sitting habits are contributing more to your back pain than you might realize. From athletes to office workers, no one is exempt.
- Expert Insights: Drawing on the pioneering work of Professor McGill, we explore why addressing the root cause of back pain is far more effective than temporary fixes.
- A Closer Look at Our Bodies: Learn how our bodies communicate through pain and what it's really trying to tell us about our spine and overall health.
- The Breakdown Process: Ever wondered how back pain develops over time? We break down the science in an easy-to-understand way, explaining the process of spinal stress accumulation and how it leads to chronic conditions.
- Lifestyle Overhaul: It’s not all doom and gloom - discover actionable steps you can take today to start reversing the damage. From improving posture to incorporating movement into your daily routine, we’ve got you covered.
- Movement as Medicine: Explore how adopting a broader perspective on movement can not only alleviate pain but also enhance your life quality.
Why listen? If you’re tired of temporary fixes and ready to tackle your back pain at its source, this episode is a must-watch. Say goodbye to the frustration of unexplained discomfort and hello to a healthier, more vibrant you.
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Are you certain that you understand the root causes and mechanism of your back pain? It's my goal in this episode to make damn sure that you have a clear idea of what's going on. A big question we want to answer is whether we are overlooking something vital. Why is the back pain persisting? What are we missing? Figuring out what's really causing our back pain is crucial, yet it's something that athletes, gym goers, weekend warriors and even healthcare professionals often skip right over. Care professionals often skip right over. We've got to understand what is causing our discomfort before we jump into any new workout plans, popping pills, going under the knife, switching up our diets or trying out some new visualization technique. Because our bodies are pretty much trying to talk to us through pain, trying to tell us to rethink and change our actions. But if we blame it on bad luck or some mysterious cause, we're just ignoring the straightforward logic of cause and effect. Injury does not come from nowhere, nor does it disappear back into nothingness. Our actions cause it. Our decisions and choices are what lay the foundation, which pave the way, and it is through our actions that we can change or heal our back pain. By changing what's causing the pain, we can change the impact of pain on us, a concept that seems pretty straightforward, straightforward but is actually quite tough to put into practice.
Speaker 1:My thinking here has started to move away from the common clinical and bodybuilding views and more towards the expanded perspective found in the movement culture. This shift mirrors the journey that Professor McGill, professor Stuart McGill, whose work that this project is based on. This shift in perspective mirrors the journey that he took to reach his discoveries. The common approach has been to reduce the injury or exercise to an isolated structure or cause. Of course, sometimes when things go wrong, we can trace their origin back to just one point or a single factor, and while that single point might be fascinating, that single point might be fascinating Looking at the bigger picture. By looking at the bigger picture, especially our broader movement patterns, we can access a lot more insight Instead of just zeroing in on specific parts of our body for diagnosis or treatment. I've come to see each of us as our own unique mix of complex, interconnected systems, something which is far removed from the ideas of isolated structures or isolated movements.
Speaker 1:When Professor McGill was asked in an interview with Dr Kelly Starrett what is pain, I'll never forget he hit the nail on the head. He said that understanding the cause of pain is much more useful than trying to define what the pain is or where it is. If we understand what's causing our back pain, we can actually do something about it. The rest is mental entertainment, mental masturbation. But before we dive into the causes of back pain, let's be clear about what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Basically, back pain is like an SOS signal from our spine, usually for most of us from the lower or lumbar area, the lower or lumbar spine. The spine is trying to tell us that it us telling us that without some changes, the problem is going to build up, it's going to accumulate and it will eventually lead to even worse problems down the line and maybe even permanent damage. And permanent damage is almost always served with a solid dose of depression. So what's the solution? It's actually quite simple Stop stressing your back, or at least reduce the stress significantly and give it a solid chance to recover. Simple, but not easy. You need to know precisely what is causing the stress and how, and this is what we're going to take a closer look at. But before we can identify the root causes of our pain, we need to understand how things break down in our body in the first place. So let's discuss this breakdown process.
Speaker 1:The wear and tear we see in our lower back injuries can best be understood through the lens or the eyes of a material scientist or engineer. Material scientists look at how structures deform under pressure, whether any of that deformation or change sticks around after the load or pressure has been removed, and how many times you can load up a structure before it breaks. Think about a paperclip, the perfect example we're all familiar with. Bend it back and forth enough times and eventually it will snap with almost no effort. When you bend the paperclip, it changes shape at the bend. This is the deformation. Bend that paperclip the other way and you get opposite changes at the opposite, at the same spot, but in the opposite direction. Each bend of the paperclip leaves a little bit of change behind the material. Scientists call this change deformation.
Speaker 1:As I've said, eventually all of these deformations add up and the paperclip snaps. This is pretty much what Professor McGill saw happening with the tissues, the structural tissues in our spine. We bend them, bend them, bend, bend, bend and then they snap. They tend to accumulate deformation from bend to bend. Very minuscule amounts, very microscopic, small amounts. But bend the spine, bend these structures enough time without the appropriate recovery, they snap eventually.
Speaker 1:Mcgill actually came to this understanding through two pretty genius angles. He tested real human spines from cadavers in mechanical loading machines to see how they held up under lots of bending, lots of repetitive bending, mimicking what we do in real life with our own spines. He also used digital simulations to mimic the loading patterns and rhythms of real skeletons, and it was through using both of these two approaches that he was able to simulate the necessary conditions which produce the damage of a lifetime on a spine. Now, this description I've given is incredibly simplified compared to what's actually happening. The reality is, of course, much more complex, and it's also important to remember that our spines are designed intended to bend. This is why they are not one solid bone but rather a complex of moving joints, and they actually do a great job at bending under the right conditions.
Speaker 1:But if we bend the joints of our spine too much or inefficiently, spine too much or inefficiently or don't give the joints enough time to recover with quality recovery, then we're going to look at that damage building up and eventually the structures breaking down. This brings up a big question why are so many of us moving or healing. Why are so many of us not moving or healing as well as we should? Where is this excess stress coming from and why are we not recovering sufficiently? So let's get to the heart of this issue. If we acknowledge that our spines are capable of handling a lifetime of movement, then we've got to take a closer look at what we're doing that is making our spine so vulnerable. We're doing that is making our spine so vulnerable. Given how widespread back pain is, the habits that lead to lower back issues must be widespread as well. If it's bad movement causing all the trouble, then we need to examine the forces shaping our movement.
Speaker 1:And there is one very obvious common denominator in all of our daily activity. For all of us, our day-to-day life is dominated by sitting more than any other single physical activity. By far. From our earliest days in a high chair to our last sitting is what we do most affecting our movement development, or rather the lack of it, more than anything else. Since we're sitting more than anything else, it's no surprise or it should be no surprise that sitting shapes how we move more than anything else. But it's more than just inactivity. Sitting is more than just inactivity. It's actually working against our development. It is anti-developmental. Even though it's everywhere, we haven't fully come to grips with how sitting down so much is really affecting us, and our wholehearted embrace of sitting definitely hasn't considered its negative side effects.
Speaker 1:Tackling the epidemic of back pain means we've got to really look at how sitting influences our movement and how it plays into this widespread issue. And I know that you've heard that sitting is the new smoking and it's no good for you, but I bet you have no idea how bad it really is. So what is the price of sitting? Is so what is the price of sitting? Let's take a moment to think about what happens to our lower back when we're seated.
Speaker 1:I think of the direct changes from sitting in three broad categories. Firstly, leaning on a chair's backrest means we're not using the muscles meant to support our spine. By ignoring these muscles, this leads to them weakening, losing our coordination of them and eventually our spine-supporting muscles can't do their job very well anymore. Secondly, sitting also destroys our breathing Because of a host of things going on when we sit and another host of things which are not going on when we sit. We all learn to breathe shallow breaths, we forget how to use our diaphragm and we develop bad habits around breathing. Develop bad habits around breathing. Thirdly, because we're not moving very much our hips and shoulders, which are mobile joints, mobile structures, or at least intended to be. When we're not moving very much during sitting, over time, our hips and shoulders, our legs and arms become restricted within these specific ranges and find it more and more difficult to access other positions.
Speaker 1:Sitting changes our body and movement in ways that directly oppose our development. Sitting is anti-developmental. It makes our core weak and our limbs stiff, setting us up for trouble down the road, and it also destroys our breathing patterns. Changes brought on by sitting are steering us away from the kind of movement that's good for us, where our core is strong, our limbs are free to move and we breathe properly. However, the biggest problems that sitting causes actually come from how these changes mess with the way we move overall in general, and this is what is causing the real issues. Our bodies are built to move, not sit still all the time.
Speaker 1:Staying in one position for too long, like sitting, can make us sore and stiff, painful, uncomfortable, rigid, because it's not what our bodies are meant to do, designed to do. Feeling uncomfortable, becoming weak and disconnected, and breathing poorly from sitting too much is just the start. If we keep it up, putting our bodies in the same position day after day can lead to long-term pain and much more serious problems. But how does sitting cause back pain? We've just discussed sitting destroying our ability to support our spine, sitting destroying our breathing, and sitting robbing our limbs of movement, breathing and sitting robbing our limbs of movement but we still haven't looked at back pain. How does sitting cause back pain when our spine supporting muscles deteriorate? Unfortunately, they don't just land up doing a poor job while we sit. These changes also persist through the rest of our movement.
Speaker 1:Let's expand on the consequences of each of the three changes we just discussed or that I just mentioned in the previous section. So, firstly, while we are sitting, the curves in our spine collapse to the end of their range because we're not supporting our spine. We become very passive in the behavior of our spine. Then, when we stand or do anything else other than sitting, our spinal curves are also going to collapse to the end of their range, because this is the habit. This is the level of our ability to support our spine. This is the level of our ability to support our spine. This is what contributes, then, to the paperclip-like bending back and forth and deterioration in the joints of our spine.
Speaker 1:The second point we discussed when we lose our ability to breathe properly while sitting, this also extends into the rest of our movements. Therefore, we breathe poorly when we sit and when we do everything else Plus, we lose the coordination to breathe and use our spine supporting muscles at the same time. This forces us between a rock and a hard place constantly. Either we can try to stabilize our spine or we can breathe. Both of these are critical functions we need all of the time, and sitting puts us in a position where we have to choose one or the other, and we can do neither of them very well. That's a disaster.
Speaker 1:And then, thirdly, the range of motion that we lose in our limbs robs us of uncountable options. We lose a massive amount of positions and patterns. These restrictions, these losses, force us to compensate, to look for ways to make up for what we have lost. And, unfortunately, the easiest place to compensate, the easiest way to create a little bit more movement, freedom for our limbs, is to ask our spine for a little bit more. This, of course, compounds the stress that our spines must deal with. So, yes, sitting is a big part of why our spines are under so much excessive stress and inadequate recovery.
Speaker 1:If you consider what sitting is doing to us and how we do it consistently, continuously, both, and then the implications of sitting also extending into the rest of our movement, it becomes obvious it should become obvious how we then don't ever get a rest, a recovery, a quality recovery from these implications of sitting. So the stress is excessive and the recovery is non-existent, and this leads to a domino effect of movement issues and pain. Losing our ability to support our own spine causes it to flop and bend back and forth like a paper clip. Losing our ability to breathe robs us of the ability to stabilize our spine and breathe simultaneously. Critical functions we need all the time, and losing range of motion in our limbs forces us to compensate more with our spine. In other words, sitting destroys our movement and, in turn, our damaged movement destroys our spine. This is a first order and then second order consequence of sitting, something that I believe that I see is completely overlooked, because sitting does not directly cause back pain. We under appreciate the role of sitting in back pain, but sitting directly destroys our movement and our poor movement directly destroys our spine.
Speaker 1:So how do we tackle this issue? What do we do? Realizing that sitting is at the heart of our back pain means that we've got to reduce or get rid of as much of it as possible. Back pain is closely related mimics, the diseases of modern western food diets like diabetes, heart disease, alzheimer's, etc. Sitting is the product, or is a product, of our modern western movement diet. We need to reduce our intake of this toxic nutrient and we need to find ways to incorporate other, more nourishing movement nutrients.
Speaker 1:There are a few ways we can start to make changes right now. Be honest with yourself about how much you're sitting and start to look for opportunities to stand up or to walk instead in as many opportunities as you can. If the option is there, take it. If you can sit on the floor, watch how many times you'll change positions. This is natural. This is healthy. This is movement. Pay attention to your posture. Start paying attention to your posture. Start paying attention to your spinal posture.
Speaker 1:Improving how we sit takes a lot of awareness and effort because we're so used to sitting in a completely detached, unaware and disengaged way, and you also need to think about how often you bend your spine in ways that don't promote its health. Try to keep your spine in a more natural and neutral position as much as you can. This will make a difference, but it's not enough to fix what we're doing right now. It would be nice if somehow stopping sitting now made up for a lifetime of sitting, but it's not. We also have to deal with how sitting has shaped us over our entire life. To get our movement back on track, we also need to start doing things that unravel the effects of a lifetime of sitting too much. By addressing our current sitting habits, though, we can powerfully reduce its effect on us going forward, but then by doing something which reverses the accumulated effects from our lifetime of sitting, we can completely overhaul our spine and movement. This is what we will be packing next. We're going to go into these two strategies more comprehensively.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sticking it out with me to the end of this episode. It probably means that you found something here that spoke to you. If it did hit the mark, don't stop now. There's a lot more where that came from. If you are ready to dive in a bit deeper, pop over to craigvanncom and check out the Kinetic Keystone course. It's on the house totally free. This episode forms a part of that Kinetic Keystone course. It's on the house totally free. This episode forms a part of that kinetic keystone project, and if you've got someone in mind who could really use this information, or maybe someone who just needs a little nudge to give it a listen, go ahead and pass it along. It's a simple and easy way to make a difference today. And just so you know, I share these discussions through both video on YouTube and audio only on my podcast, the Craig Van Cast. So whether you're into watching or listening, or both, I've got you covered.