Why Muscles Cause Low Back Pain: Low back ilio/quads

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Why Muscles Cause Low Back Pain: Low back ilio/quads


by Julie Donnelly
*I enjoy Julie’s articles very much, and requested permission to reprint this one in case you aren’t familiar with her work. Follow the links to her site when you get to the bottom of the article—she has much to teach us. ~ Laree*

Do you wake up in pain? When you are trying to get out of bed, does the pain in your back take your breath away? You move slowly. Your hips feel “locked.” You make it into the shower and let the hot water run on your back and finally you’re “almost ok.” And it’s still early in the day!

As the day goes on, it seems to improve a bit. You rub your shoulders, and try to move your body around to find a comfortable position. Finally, you get into the car and drive home. By the time you try to get out of the car, the pain is back with a vengeance. This time it doesn’t seem to get any better, and you eventually go to bed, to repeat the cycle tomorrow.

Many people go to their chiropractor and it feels better for awhile, but the pain keeps returning. You try muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory drugs, pain pills…anything to make the pain subside. You know that the drugs have serious side-effects, but you need to do something!

There is a very logical reason that it comes back.

These conditions can all be the end result of muscle spasms! While it seems incredible that a simple thing like a spasm can cause so much trouble, it’s easy to understand when you take a close look at the body. There are 600 muscles, and 206 bones, in your body. Unless you have a traumatic accident, the only reason bones move is because muscles pull on them. Muscles originate in one place, cross over the joint and then insert in another place. Muscles always pull on the insertion point. Visualize pulling your hair at the end. You don’t feel it at the end where you are pulling, but you do feel it on the scalp where it inserts. Likewise, you rarely feel the pain in the part of the muscle that is being pulled, but you do feel it at the insertion, the origination point, and the joint bends.

Although every joint moves by using the same dynamics, for ease of explanation about low back pain, we’ll just pay attention to the muscles that cause you to bend forward, stand up straight, or lean to the side. We’ll also take a look at the muscle group that pulls your pelvis down in the front.

The two low back muscles both start on your lumbar vertebrae. One, the iliopsoas, originates on the front of your vertebrae and either pulls you into a bent forward position or lifts your leg up so you can take a step or sit down. And the other, the quadratus lumborum, originates on the back of your lumbar vertebrae and enables you to lean to the side. There is a long muscle on your back, the erector spinae, that originates along the entire length of your spine and is responsible for bringing you up to the standing tall position. These three muscles are the reason you move in any direction at your waist. It will help if you visualize what happens to your pelvis and low back as these muscles contract and lengthen.

If you want to sit down, the iliopsoas contracts and you begin to bend at the top of your legs. While this is happening, your pelvis begins to rotate forward and down to enable the move. However, if you sit for an extended period of time, the muscle shortens and when you want to stand up, the muscle must stretch. The tight iliopsoas pulls down on your lumbar vertebrae, and it also impacts your thigh muscles, the quadriceps, requiring them to shorten in order for you to straighten your leg. The now-shortened quadriceps will pull your pelvis down in the front and put a further strain on your lumbar vertebrae. When you add all of this together, you have low back pain caused by sitting!

When you bend forward, you are actually stretching the muscles on your back, so they aren’t as involved in back pain as you would expect. In fact, the majority of time the only reason the muscles of your back are painful is from doing something like shoveling snow or lifting heavy weights from a bent position.

The cause of low back pain becomes more complicated and in order to explain it fully, and demonstrate how to self-treat each of these muscles, I will be writing a short booklet entitled Stop Low Back Pain FAST! Be sure to visit www.julstro.com soon for your copy.

© 2009 Julie Donnelly, LMT is an internationally respected expert in repetitive strain injuries. She has specialized in the treatment of chronic joint pain and sports injuries since 1989, and is the author of many books including Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You, Treat Yourself to Pain–Free Living: Discover the Secret of Why You Hurt and How to Stop It, and The Pain-Free Triathlete. Ms. Donnelly also has expertise at training individuals and groups the self-treatment methods that eliminate pain and can be reached through her websites, www.aboutCTS.com and www.julstro.com