Why Sitting Makes Your Back Pain Worse
Sitting is part and parcel of daily life and in this video we discuss this activity with reference to your back injury. It is helpful if whenever you hear the phrase ‘back pain’, think ‘back injury’.
The action of sitting, even with the best posture possible puts more load through key structures in your lumbar spine. These structures, such as the intervertebral discs, are often involved to a greater or lesser degree in the back injury as a whole. There is often an amount of tissue damage which is trying to heal.
It’s helpful to understand that these structures, the discs, the spine and its supporting ligaments and joints as a whole, are designed to bear weight. As loadbearing structures their ability to do this is often impaired to a greater or lesser degree while injured.
Knowing that the low back is designed to bear load, that it will be less able to bear more load while injured, and that sitting specifically loads certain tissues in the low back more, it becomes clear to see why the activity of sitting is one to avoid if you’re struggling with back pain.
This situation gets more complicated when immediately during sitting, there is relief, but that is a topic for another video!
