A new study suggests that you may be able to walk your back pain off. In their findings published in the journal The Lancet, researchers said adults who had a history of lower-back pain who walked regularly went twice as long between recurrences of pain as those who did not take regular walks. Walking is a low-cost, widely accessible and simple exercise that almost anyone can engage in, regardless of geographic location, age or socio-economic status.
Researchers don’t know exactly why walking is so good for preventing back pain, but it is likely to include the combination of gentle oscillatory movements, loading and strengthening the spinal structures and muscles, relaxation and stress relief, and release of ‘feel-good’ endorphins. And of course, they also know that walking comes with many other health benefits, including cardiovascular health, bone density, healthy weight, and improved mental health.
Walking is, generally speaking, among the most important physical movements we perform in a biomechanical context–possibly on par with breathing. Human bodies are made to walk, and doctors say that the more you walk, the healthier you’ll be. Walking allows the body to gently activate the core and distribute pressure dynamically and evenly. Muscles that are tighter than they should will relax a bit while those that are too relaxed will be activated. Additionally, walking helps develop muscles that directly and indirectly support the spine; these muscles span the entire body.
Participants were assigned to either a walking program and a series of physiotherapist-guided education sessions over six months, or a control group that did not receive either intervention.
The intervention group had fewer occurrences of activity-limiting pain compared to the control group and a longer average period before they had a recurrence, with a median of 208 days compared to 112 days. Back pain can arise due to degeneration of the intervertebral discs, degeneration of the joints connecting the spinal vertebrae to one another, instability of the spine, deformity, nerve root compression, and muscular strain/sprain, among others.
For patients who have been recommended to pursue non-surgical treatment for recurrent lower back pain, exercise of some sort, avoidance of smoking, and maintenance of a healthy body weight have been shown to lead to a decreased incidence of future back pain recurrences. The researchers plan a follow-up study on integrating the preventative intervention into regular patient care.
The exercise-based interventions to prevent back pain that have been explored previously are typically group-based and need close clinical supervision and expensive equipment, so they are much less accessible to the majority of patients. This study has shown that this effective and accessible means of exercise has the potential to be successfully implemented at a much larger scale than other forms of exercise.
