Is It OK To Bend My Back?

​"Keep your back straight."
"Bend at the knees."
"Sit up straight"

All of these are common recommendations provided by healthcare practitioners, personal trainers, massage therapists, chiropractors, and of course, my favorite.....Google.​ [...]

But what if this really isn't the best advice? New research has come out that may have us questioning this longstanding belief. 

A group of researchers recently concluded that lifting with a bent back (or bending forward to pick something up) was actually a more efficient way of lifting and did NOT lead to any increased strain on the back or injury. A write up about the study can be found here: 
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/17/straight-back-bent-knees-advice-wrong-study-finds/


This study, combined with others that show that teaching people "proper" body mechanics and how to lift, did not decrease the frequency of back pain in the workplace, should make us question the commonly held belief that we need to keep our backs straight when we lift something. It may be that just bending forward and reaching down to pick something up is the more natural way of lifting and the bending is not actually the problem that causes back pain.

Now, before you go calling me crazy for suggesting that we all just bend forward all the time whenever we have to lift something, let me explain a couple of situations where this may not apply in my opinion.

First, if you have low back pain now and bending forward is painful, it may not make sense to move into this motion. The bending motion is what I call "sensitized" (it hurts!). Avoiding this for a short time does make sense. However, in order to recover fully, eventually, you need to start moving normally. I help guide people all the time in how to do this after an episode of back pain so that they can move all directions without pain or worry so that they can recover and function normally like they did before their pain started. 

The second situation where we may want to consider keeping a more flat back is when we are picking up something heavy such as during weightlifting (deadlifts, squats) or regular life activities. In these situations, it may be more beneficial for us to keep the back flat and bend at the knees to use our strong leg muscles more. 

In other situations, bending relaxed, free, and thoughtless is likely the most healthy for our back-it was designed to be strong and flexible. We may have to consider that the motion of bending forward is not the problem, or a bad thing to do. The important factor really may be whether or not we have prepared our body to do it!

My goal in working with people recovering from back pain is to get them back to moving the way they did before they hurt their back. There are many ways to do this and with the proper education, treatment techniques, and progressive movements, patients with back pain are able to get over their pain and move more naturally....the way they moved prior to experiencing pain. 

If you have questions or need some help, please feel free to reach out to me and I would be happy to talk with you.

Thanks for reading,
Bob