Reason to Get a Massage #4 Manage Low Back Pain

Well, this sounds like a pretty obvious reason to get a massage.  Actually, massage is NOT the first thing a lot of people think for low back pain.  They go to their medical doctor and get a prescription. 

Obviously, the pain meds will probably relieve the back pain … temporarily.  The problem is … unless the CORE  problem that is causing the back pain is RESOLVED, the pain WILL come back.  Another trip to the doctor.  Another round of Rx, and so on and so on.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is now recommending more exercise, yoga, and specific modalities of massage, before taking a prescription or medication for acute low-back pain.

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The new guidelines are suggesting a variety of ideas and techniques to speed up healing back pain.  This includes heat wraps, certain types of massage, acupuncture as well as spinal manipulation.  These techniques relax sore, tight muscles, tendons, and joints, which relieve low back pain much sooner than if they don’t try these options.

It's a great thing that our society is beginning to move away from typical and quick fixes like pills … to a more natural approach that involves simple, but very effective, lifestyle changes.

You want to make sure that your massage therapist understands which muscles to target when assessing and treating a client with low back pain.  She will need to assess where you back pain is, which movements exacerbate the pain, and how long you've been experiencing it.  It’s also important to tell your therapist what you do, how you move, the activities, or non-activities you engage in, for the majority of your day.  This plays a big part in why and how your pain is where it is and how it should be treated.

Your therapist should be asking these specific questions before getting started, getting feedback during your treatment, and helping you to understand why she is working in a specific area, especially if it’s an area of your body that is NOT your low back.

The Quadrates Lumborum (QL) muscle (connects the last rib to the pelvis) is at fault for causing severe low back pain.  The QL is responsible for stabilizing and aligning the spine.

A tight QL can cause sharp or stabbing pain the lower back.​
The QL becomes can be irritated during the activities such as:  

• Leaning over and lifting something, for example, out of a trunk, the floor of a closet, or the bottom shelf.
• Leaning over a sink doing dishes, a bathtub washing a child, or weeding a flowerbed and gardening.
• Poor posture while sitting.
• Running on uneven pavement.

The QL must be massaged AND stretched at the same time, to effectively reduce the low back pain that is caused by a hypertonic (tight) QL muscle.

The other major muscle that causes low back pain when hypertonic is the gluteus medius.  The gluteus medius is a “buttocks” muscle that becomes inflamed as it tries to compensate for the QL muscles’ dysfunction..

As with the QL, this muscles should be massaged and stretched at the same time, in order to provide the most long term relief.

By treating these two muscles in this way and by spending a significant amount of time just on them in one session, the QL and the gluteus medius will release and give the client tremendous relief long term, perhaps for good.

Exercise to strengthen deep back muscles and abdominal muscles are critical to reinforcing support of the spine and preventing further pain and injury to the low back.  As we age, these muscles atrophy, so it’s very important to use and strengthen them regularly.