Weight lifting and lower back pain go hand in hand

Building muscle is important for just about every sport. But lifting is one of the worst motions for your spine; when you add larger weights into the equation, the risk only increases. A further factor that can aggravate lower back pain is insufficiency in the core muscles which stabilize the spinal segments in the lower back and prevent any slippage of the vertebrae from occurring. If you then lift with poor posture, you are setting yourself up for lower back pain due to nerve compression caused by vertebrae moving out of position. 

When the nerve-under-compression in question is the sciatic nerve, serious problems can ensue

As you find in our last blog here, sciatic nerve pain is insidious: it comes in many forms. But there is a simple way you can determine if you may be suffering from sciatic nerve compression using the straight-leg raise. Grab yourself an exercise band, then lay flat on the floor. Using the exercise band around the bottom of your foot, raise your leg, making sure to keep your knee straight. If this causes pain in the lower back, or other sciatica symptoms, give our office in Fremont a call to find out how we can start fighting back against sciatica today. 

Don’t let sciatica have a role in your sport any longer

As it comes in many forms, so it has many causes. At our office in Fremont, we perform a full physical examination and typically look for these common culprits when it comes to sciatica:

• Subluxation
• Herniated disc
• Vertebral stress fractures
• Piriformis syndrome

…among others. A professional medical diagnosis is part one of any successful plan for rehabilitating sciatica and getting you back to your sport. From here, we use a variety of modalities to effect pain relief and prevent the pain from recurring; these modalities include:

• Spinal adjustment to alleviate sciatic nerve compression and improve range of motion.
• Deep-tissue therapy to encourage circulation and healing
• Therapeutic stretching to restore range of motion.
• Strengthening core stabilizer muscles to prevent vertebrae from slipping out of place in the future
• Addressing tightness in the piriformis muscle that causes pressure on the sciatic nerve

We have a you-specific plan for addressing sciatica. And we are waiting for you to give our office in Fremont a call to schedule an appointment so we can get started today.