Back pain benefits from exercise

Lower back pain can be so debilitating and also difficult to treat, and if affects nearly 80 percent of the population. You may feel like lying flat on your back and doing nothing, but new research shows you are better off exercising more, not less. This news comes from the University of Alberta in Canada and they found that both men and women with chronic lower-back pain definitely benefited from regular exercise. If they managed to work at a gym with weights for four days a week they improved their quality of life, had nearly 30 percent less pain and an impressive 36 per cent less disability. Those with similar lower back problems who only exercised two or three days a week did not show the same level of change or gain the same benefit.

Working with weights seems to be what did the trick in this study, but please only under supervision and with someone who can give you proper, qualified, professional advice. In the UK the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is the government’s own health watchdog, has recommended for the first time ever that complementary therapies be prescribed for lower back pain. They suggest a course of acupuncture, exercise classes like Pilates, or massage if the symptoms persist for six weeks or more – I would be there within a week myself!