Back Pain Prevention Through Stretching

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Dr. Eric Sayer from Sayer Family Chiropractic. I'm here on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment, we're going to talk about stretching and exercise with a strained back. Very simple, but the more type of nice easy stretching that you can do to the injured area, generally, the better you are. Not really aggressive. Just very simple stretches that you'll be able to feel pull on the area. Don't of course push it too much. Activity will still be important. Like we talked about, you still need to walk and do certain things and not let the muscles atrophy, but to keep them active, but don't push it too much. With stretching, it's important to not stretch too far. Early on when you strain your back, just don't push it. If it starts to bother you or you stretch and you get to a point where it becomes painful or it doesn't feel like it's moving, that's the point to stop. As time goes on and as how you heal, you'll be able to stretch further and you'll be able to go without the pain. Let the pain be the primary indicator when your first start out. Same with exercise. Your back is a lot easier to let it heal up and then go back to exercising then it is to have an injury on top of an injury and then try to fix it. It takes a lot more work. With exercise, same thing. Let the pain be the guide of how much you can do, which brings up a point. If you are on medications that are masking the pain, you'll definitely have to take it lighter than you normally would because you would not have that indicator to tell you when to stop."