MedX: The Importance of a Strong Back

One of the primary myths surrounding back pain is that exercise, especially weight training, should be avoided because of back pain.

The importance of exercise and a strong back is often underestimated in the case of both acute and chronic LBP. Studies have found the recovery from acute back pain occurs more quickly with the right type and progression of exercise. Even chronic back pain shouldn’t keep you from the activities you enjoy, including exercise.

Your back needs movement to be healthy like any of the other joints in the body. Exercise helps maintain your range of motion and prevents your muscles from weakening, in turn allowing you to heal more quickly. Underworking your back can be equally as detrimental as overworking your back.

The deep muscles that stabilize the spine are small and often inhibited by the body’s response to pain. This guarding response can result in weakness during reduced activity levels associated with prolonged periods of pain. In turn, allowing these deep stabilizers to be overridden by the larger muscles of the hips and back. This can result in abnormal muscle firing and pain as you begin to resume daily activities. Unless these larger muscles are prevented from being used during back strengthening exercises, it is difficult to directly target the correct muscles groups required to have a strong spine and full return to normal function without pain.

The lumbar MedX machine has proven to be extremely effective in the treatment of back pain. The patented restraint system provides an effective way to isolate the deep spinal muscles by preventing movement in the pelvis and firing of the hip and leg muscles. This isolation allows the spine to move smoothly and restore normal firing of the deep spinal stabilizers through a pain free range of motion.

Another benefit of the MedX is the ability to test an individual’s low back strength effectively with comparison to normal values taking into account the patient’s age, weight, and gender. This allows us to determine how strong your back should be if it was healthy.

Following this baseline test, a training program with individualized progression of resistance levels is performed, in addition to core stability exercises, in order to normalize the overall physiologic strength of the lumbar spine, decrease pain, and reduce susceptibility to future back injuries

Back pain is common, but a strong spine can allow you to continue doing the things you love.