There are many activities you may have to do around the Christmas season that can cause common problems and injuries. As back pain affects 80% of us at some point, here is some advice about what to do to prevent problems –
The first line of treatment has traditionally been paracetamol, but new research has found it may be no more effective than a sugar pill. It is better to prevent by strengthening your abdominal muscles and back to help stabilising then stretching and strengthening around your weak muscles.
The most important thing to consider first is what’s actually causing your lower back pain. By considering this question you’ll be able to choose the right techniques or treatments to get to the root cause and move towards a much speedier recovery. For the most part, lower back pain is caused by strains to the soft tissues, the muscles, tendons or ligaments, and/or to the joints underlying the commons problems.
Here are some common activities over the festive period that can contribute to back pain and some tips as to how you can minimise this.
1. Cooking, washing up, prepping food, you may be standing for long periods of time. This can cause sore feet, swollen ankles and puffy legs, tense shoulders and ultimately back pain.
2. Making beds, shaking duvet, bending, lifting, moving items, getting the house ready, cleaning, gardening – clearing leaves and digging, All can cause sore wrists and knees and back pain.
3. Sitting for long periods – writing cards, wrapping etc all causing sore hands and fingers and back pain.
All of the above can cause these common problems ….
REPETITIVE STRAIN INJURY –More commonly seen in the upper body, this type of injury can occur in the lower back when an action is continually repeated over a long period of time, causing stress to the joints or soft tissues.
It happens due to a repetitive pattern in movement usually caused by work or sport.
For example, if at work you constantly have to turn to your right, the right side of your lower back could become compressed, irritated and inflamed.
How to fix it? Try to adapt and balance the movement of your body throughout the day.
If a pattern of movement is unavoidable then stretching in the counter direction would be beneficial. All of the above activities could contribute to repetitive strain injury so try and vary the jobs you do and don’t spend to long on one thing. Your aim is to balance out your body preventing one side taking all the strain.
A regular massage with an experienced therapist may be helpful too. Or massage your feet or have a game everyone massaging feet.
Some preventative measures you could take are as follows …
Always consider your posture, look in the mirror look at how you stand and sit, pull the shoulders back, lift up through the spine.
Stop and stretch every hour. Even going for a gentle walk for five minutes can do wonders.
Low impact regular exercise is best such as yoga, pilates, swimming and walking. This will also help your stress levels over the festive season too.
Regularly move shoulders, roll them and do back stretches.
Be mindful of posture alignment and back pain and use your pelvic floor engage the abdominals before you lift .
ACUTE MUSCLE OR JOINT STRAIN
This is probably the most common injury to happen to the lower back and quite often occurs when lifting, over reaching, so when moving furniture around, making beds etc.
Symptoms can include muscle spasm, pain (which can be severe) and restricted movement.
Overreaching, twisting or stretching causes the muscles, tendons and ligaments in the area to tighten to prevent further damage and inflammation will build up as part of the natural healing process. Fast treatment is the most effective for this.
Some preventative measures you could take are as follows …
Always bend the knees and engage core before lifting
Always bend at the knees not at the back before lifting.
How to fix it? Immediately put an ice pack on the area for ten minutes at least. Repeat this several times until the inflammation begins to subside.
If the muscles have tightened up you could also alternate with a hot pack to help them relax, but start and finish with the cold pack to ease the inflammation and reduce the pain.
As with any injury rest is important to allow the body time to heal, but don’t spend hours sitting or lying down as this could make it worse. Find a good balance and when it has calmed down a little, stretch the area out with exercises such as shoulder bridge, rock on your lower back. You may find massaging arnica cream into the strained area beneficial.
So do enjoy the festive season, but don’t overdo it. Make time for yourself and make sure you enjoy some exercise too which will help keep your body in tip top condition.