I was reading an article about back problems and some of the various attempts to alleviate the pain they have. I have also read that back problems are one the biggest causes of work absenteeism in the workplace. I tell people that you can’t really understand a sore back unless you have had the problem. It is tough to sit down, stand up, walk any distance, or even lie down.
Some back problems have a physical cause and need some corrective measures to take care of the pain. Many of them stem from a small beginning and lead to bigger problems as time goes on. One of the most common beginnings of back problems is how a person stands. Think about how you stand still while waiting for something. Do you stand with equal weight on both legs or do you tend to stand with more weights on one leg? Observing most people you will see that they tend to shift their weight to one leg when standing still. The problem is that people are creatures of habit. When people shift the weight to one leg it will always be the same leg. They do not stand on the left leg Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then shift to the right leg on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
There is a muscle in the buttocks called the gluteus medius that keeps the pelvic girdle level. The problem when people stand on one leg consistently is that the muscle on the supporting leg is put on a slight stretch. The muscle on the other side is relaxed and tends to shorten and get weaker. When you decide to return to normal after doing this for months, or years, is that with one muscle stretched out and the other one shortened, you do not come back to a level pelvic girdle. A pelvic girdle that is tilted to one side tends to cause a pinching of the nerves coming out of the back and causes pain in the back and down one leg.
