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By Melissa Milne, LMT, CPT
I’ve been helping people find relief from back pain for 17 years as a wellness coach, personal trainer, and massage therapist.
Though it’s my job to help people solve their problems, I’ve had the most success teaching others how to parent their bodies.
Most people perpetuate physical pain by allowing subconscious tension patterns in their bodies to become dominant. It’s important for them to learn how to consciously and consistently parent their muscles with (1) muscle engagement exercises, which “turn on” muscles that are slack, as well as (2) foam rolling and stretching, which “turn off” muscles that overwork.
Chronic back pain is often caused by long-term postural habits as well as muscle overuse patterns. We do an enormous amount of sitting and standing in our modern society, but very little crawling, climbing, backward movement, sideways movement, and twisting. This limitation of diverse movement is where many of our pain problems begin.
Sitting for hours on end over years trains certain muscles in the body, such as the hamstrings, to stay hyper-lengthened, and other muscles, such as the quadriceps, to stay hyper-shortened. This chronic muscle length imbalance not only puts muscles in danger of being injured when we exercise, it also puts torque on bones and joints that the muscles are attached to, exacerbating joint deterioration and weakness.
How Imbalanced Leg Muscles Lead to Back Pain
Let’s look at the quadriceps and hamstring muscles of the legs as examples of how imbalances create, or exacerbate, pain patterns. When you sit, the quadriceps (the muscles in the thigh at the front of the leg) are constantly engaged, or in a shortened position, to help you sit upright. This causes a pull on the bones and joints they are attached to, namely those of the pelvis and lower back. At the same time, the hamstrings (the back of the upper legs) are hyper-lengthened, or loosened, further allowing the quads to dominate.
When a muscle group such as the hamstrings is in a lengthened position for a long time, you also program the brain and nervous system to keep them at this relative length. This renders them less capable of contracting when needed. Even after you’re done sitting, the quadriceps are still trained to be on, and the hamstrings off.
Let’s say you then try to use your hamstrings to run, bike, hike, or even just get out of your car. The hamstrings are either slow to respond, respond partially and tire easily, or freeze up. The worst-case scenario is that they actually tear. When the hamstrings are chronically lengthened, they respond by constantly trying to get back to their optimal length. They do this in an attempt to balance the quadriceps’ pull on the pelvis. Instead of solving the problem, it just ends up creating chronic hamstring tightness.
Many clients have come to me complaining of tightness in the backs of their legs, which they can’t release no matter how much they stretch. Contrary to what it seems, the hamstrings are tight because they are actually too long and are trying to correct themselves. Daily sitting habits with a lack of body-parenting practices perpetuate a cycle that feeds itself until you have chronic pain problems. Muscles on either side of a joint are supposed to check and balance each other. Their job is to keep joints stabilized and bones aligned properly. When the hamstrings and quadriceps are imbalanced as above, the pelvis and spine become chronically unstable and misaligned.
How to Get Relief
The following 3 steps will help to remedy these imbalances. Your body responds to the imbalance of the hamstrings and quadriceps by increasing tension in the hips and lower back. The body acts like a child and tries erratically to manage the instability and misalignment, but it lacks the skills you, a parent, can teach. Their ignorance leads to more pain and joint deterioration.
Imbalanced muscle relationships commonly happen all over the body. The only way to interrupt these relationships is through conscious re-education of the muscles, or self-parenting, consistently. Over time, the lessons become subconscious, and the body starts organizing muscle relationships correctly on its own.
Muscle re-education is a procedure. It helps to start with finding professional help to determine the best way to teach your muscles. It’s advantageous in the beginning once you have a regimen to perform it 5 days per week by yourself. Over time, you can decrease to 2 days per week. Your muscles need this self-parenting discipline. This will ensure your long-term comfort and optimal health.
Self-parenting muscles usually require setting aside time for it. It’s likely you have spent many years and countless hours mis-educating your muscles. Therefore, it will take consistent effort to re-educate them and keep them at their correct lengths.
Following are 3 Steps to Use When Adopting a Self-Care Regimen
- Find a trainer or physical therapist to help discover your body’s specific shortcomings and needs or to design a regimen that addresses them.
- Consciously and consistently practice such exercises as foam rolling, specific stretches, and muscle engagement exercises. Doing this 3-5 days per week is best.
- If your regimen stops working, get help to learn what has changed or what you’re doing incorrectly (start again at number 1).
Summary
As the parent of your body, you decide which muscles get to lead and which ones get to relax! The over-developed muscles in the body, like a petulant child, would govern actions if you allow them to do so. Once you’re familiar with your body’s challenges and how to deal with them, you’ll want to become consistent in your self-parenting regimen.
It’s easy to get into the aimless habit of complaining about your pain and depending on others to fix it. However, you have more power than you think! All you need is the right information and a willingness to take responsibility for your own empowerment.
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Melissa Milne, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Wellness Coach, pregnancy coach, and intuitive counselor is available for consultation via Zoom sessions. She is the owner of Raise the Bar Wellness. For private sessions, workshops, or more information: www.raisethebarwellness.online, 520-809-1295, or raisethebarwellness@gmail.com
