Why Do I Lean Away From My Pain?
Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about how you stand when you have back pain. Antalgic posture is the term for when you have back pain and you find it difficult to straighten up.
This antalgic posture can often be without you even noticing you’re happening, it might be that you’re leaning off to one side and usually you lean away from the herniation or disc bulge. When we adjust our positioning like this with back pain, the spaces in the spine can get slightly bigger as we’ve adjusted the positioning because it often feels better – this is due to this extra space. However, inflammation fills the space and can then make it very painful for us to move back into our original standing position.
If you’ve strained a disc, for whatever reason – it could be gardening, moving house etc. There’s damage that occurs to the ligaments, they’re being overly stretched and the disc might be bulging. Leaning in one way or another takes the pressure away from your disc, but it can depend where the injury is as to which side you lean. For the disc to bulge, there is usually more than one area that’s become injured. When one structure fails, others usually will as well. It can also take a long time for these areas to fail, and we may not be aware just how much overtime you’re causing damage to the spine.
Forward leaning can overstretch the muscles on your back, the ligaments further as well as making your back problem worse as you’re in a different position. So although it can make you feel better, it’s not helpful for you at all long-term.
So how can you help the problem?
Our towel stretch is one of the best ways to unload the spine. Take a towel rolled up to roughly the thickness of a foam roller and place under the lower back as you lie on the floor. Lie on it for around 3-5 minutes and then gently roll yourself off to the side. This exercise can also help to square off your posture so your hips are more level as well, to help encourage you back into a straighter alignment.
