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Back Pain Now Dominates Our Modern World
How to live, work, and move in ways that keep your spine healthy
Four out of five. That’s the number of Americans who experience back pain at some point in their lives. It’s the leading cause of disability around the world among adults, second only to infections as a reason for seeking treatment. As a chiropractor, I treat patients with this affliction every day. Back pain has become more prevalent and ubiquitous in our modern world, and much of that has to do with how we interact with our environment.
There are things we do too much of, and others we’re not doing nearly enough — which is causing both structural and mechanical changes, leading factors in pain, dysfunction, and disability.
A primary driver for the increase in back pain has to do with the changing nature of work. Our occupations have shifted; from active jobs, to more sedentary ones. According to Johns Hopkins, physically active jobs now make up less than 20% of the U.S. workforce. The American Heart Association also found sedentary jobs have increased by 83% since 1950. These occupations come with a unique set of circumstances — causing and contributing to back pain — and it all starts with sitting.
Sitting too often, for too long, with poor posture
You’re probably sitting right now. And that’s fine, provided you haven’t been doing so for over an hour without standing at least once. Therein lies the problem: an average person spends more than half their day sitting, while an office worker sits 15 hours every workday.
All that sitting is harmful for a host of reasons. When we sit, blood flow decreases and tends to pool in our legs, major muscle groups become inactive while others become taught and spastic, and our posture pays the price.
The glutes are among the largest, most powerful muscle groups in our body, and sitting turns them off like a light switch. We have the compounded effect of tightening the psoas muscle (a primary hip flexor), as well as tightening our hamstrings (a primary knee flexor). Essentially, we are deactivating a powerful muscle group (the glutes) and putting tension in other muscle groups (the psoas and hamstrings) which further inhibits…
