What if your low back isn’t the problem with your lower back pain?

Too often I have folks walking through my door with extreme pain in their low back. After a complete assessment using the Selective Functional Movement Assessment I find all too often that the patient’s back is working just fine  – in fact it is overworking to compensate for other parts that aren’t doing their job. It’s this unfortunate overworking that leads to pain, discomfort,  and fear of moving the wrong way. The sad fact of the matter is often these patients go through treatment for their low back which only addresses the low back – treating something that didn’t have anything wrong with it to begin with. This is where a thorough assessment is critical; Without a thorough assessment you’re only throwing darts into the dark. When most folks present with low back pain in my clinic I see several things, but more often than naught, it is mainly a dysfunctional hip stability problem. The wrong things are firing at the wrong time and shifting their load to a low back that isn’t prepared to handle it. This causes pain,  giving out,  and fear to move. Unfortunately, this movement avoidance perpetuates the cycle of dysfunction. Without proper movement the dysfunctional hips never have an opportunity to return to being functional. So now any movement with exceptionally dysfunctional hips leads to further low back pain, solidifying fear of movement and sidelining activity.
Do you suspect you might have hips misbehaving themselves?

 

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