For the past year or so I've had problems sporadically with a stiff back, which results in achy every-day movement. I believe the problem may be my bed, given that the mattress is fairly old now, and not exactly providing me with the most comfortable night's rest. However, buying a new mattress right now isn't in my list of things to do, since I'll be moving to an apartment soon and it's going to be furnished already.

I believe the problem has worsened some because I've started working out recently, and my back muscles are already sore to begin with, so straining them isn't helping. I try to relieve some pain by popping my back (doing that turn around on a chair thing, if you guys know what I'm talking about) although most of the time I can't pop it and so it just makes it worse.

I'm wondering if there's any type of stretching or activity that I should try that could help remedy the situation. My girlfriend got a free chiropractor treatment done once to her, and they said they basically realigned her back or something, but I don't know much about that. I know they can also be very expensive, and in some cases I've heard they can be dangerous as well. Anyways, if you guys have any suggestions for me, I'd appreciate it.

I thought I should probably add that I'm only 20 years old.

Dr. Massassi has a Ph.D. in kicking your ***

Anyways, yoga and sitting meditation other than yoga.

I used to throw out my back doing the most inane things 4 or 5 years ago. Not normal for someone who's 20 years old. I got a pair of orthodic inserts for my shoes and it hasn't happened since.

Chiropractic "medicine" is a crock of ****. It doesn't do anything that a massage won't.

You should see a physical therapist, they can actually help you.

Excedrin.

I hurt my knee playing soccer. Severe ligament sprain and a slight displacement of my tibia. It wasn't sitting right in the knee joint. It caused me a lot of pain after the ligaments had healed whenever I was active (I played soccer everyday at the time). I went to a chiropractor, who fixed my knee by realigning it. It hasn't been a problem since.

Mind you, this is always going to be a matter of opinion, but I find that the vast majority of people knocking chiropractors have never actually been to one. And personally, I've had a chiropractor do something to help me, so I'll never be in the "chiropractic medicine is BS" boat.

Meditation works wonders. I could explain it out if you're actually willing to give it a try. It's how I haven't taken pain medications for the better part of my life, despite arthritis and other things.

Sometimes overtight hamstrings and/or your butt can pull your back around goofy, so here's a few stretches you can do:

1. Lay on your back. Raise one leg and lock your knee. Hold it as close to 90 degrees as you can - just use your hand for a little support - don't force it to the 90 angle. Hold it for a count of 10. Relax and do the other leg.

2. Bend one leg at the knee and rest the foot of the bent leg on the knee of your straight leg. Grab the bent knee with the opposite hand and pull the bent knee down over your other leg. rinse and repeat.

Of course, you could always get down on all fours and simply arch your back up and hold it.

I had a lot of back problems last year, but mine turned out to be arthritis in my lower 4 vertebra. I got steroid injections at the joints and it feels 1000% better.

The remedy for all pain is to stop being a sissy.

An adjustment can't hurt you. The chiropractor knows how to do things to your back you can't do yourself, and he can do them without hurting you. An adjustment is usually pretty cheap, even if you have no insurance. If you really don't want to see a professional, find a petite woman or child and have them walk on your back until it cracks.
Popping your back by twisting isn't the same thing the chiropractor will do, he will pop it by compression - which you physically can not do yourself.
Meditation will definitely make you feel better, but if there actually is a physical problem, it's not going to fix it. Coupling it with yoga might, but you should still see a professional. Really. That's what they are for.

I've always thought that the reason lifting things with your back hurts your back is because you never use your back to lift things. Lots of people have a muscle imbalance, where their abs are very strong and their back muscles are weak. This is one of the causes of chronic back pain.

I should clarify, the "focusing your body energies" part is complete ****. If they are only realigning things, they probably shouldn't be a chiropractor. Then again they might make less money that way...

Should I visit a chiropractor or a physical therapist? Are they the same thing? I'm very ignorant about this subject, as I've never been to this type of doctor or physician before.

Physical therapy is based around actual, modern medical science. So that one. Also it is likely covered by your insurance, whereas a chiropractor almost certainly would not be.

They are not the same thing.

A chiropracter can offer relief sometimes, it depends on the injury/circumstances. They focus on skeletal issues.

Physical therapists do musculoskeletal stuff. Physical therapy can also help, but around here, they like you to see a doctor first, otherwise, they are just making their best guess at why you are having pain. They can help more if they know the cause. For instance, the first doctor I went to about my back didn't do any xrays or mri's and just sent me to PT. The PT people didn't know how to best treat my situation, so they tried a bunch of stuff and would ask after a few visits if I thought it was helping or not.

Neither are cheap.

If you have insurance and are counting on them to help pay for any of this, you better check to see if they will even cover a chiropractor and how many visits to the PT office they will cover.

What kind of crazy chiropractor have you been too? Sure you aren't thinking of acupuncture?

A physical therapist will make you do exercises and things to rehabilitate injured muscles. A chiropractor just makes sure your bones fit together right.

Insurance covers chiropractors. Hell. A lot of insurance covers acupuncture, so even if that is what you're thinking of, you're still wrong.

...Chiropractors... you realise they're spine doctors right?

doctor?

Chiropractors aren't actually doctors. Some are, but most aren't. They have 6 to 8 years of education, 4 of it post-graduate. Not terribly different from physical therapists - who also aren't usually actually doctors.

Fine, spine based physios.

Acupuncture might work :/.

Feet shoulder width apart.
Hands above your head, palms facing the ceiling.
Arch your back slightly, stand up on your toes. Hold for 5-10 seconds.
Slowly come back down onto your heels, then bend over and touch your toes. Hold 5-10 seconds.

Repeat several times.

Ontop of that, make sure the workouts you're doing aren't damaging your back to be worse than it was. Strengthening exercises such as the standard fare of core/body exercises and simple yoga can really help out in general. I do a few yoga stretches in the morning followed by a routine of squats, pushups, dips, crunches and a light cardio (run/bike). My back, knees and core have never felt better.

Yoga.

Try to dodge standing bicep curls at the gym, they give me the most trouble.

Hot bath + a couple pillows under your knees when you fall asleep.

works wonders.

unless theres something seriously wrong.

Be very careful with chiropractors. There are some who are exceedingly excellent at their trade. And there are others who flunked out of med school and decided to do this instead.

Because it is not a 'medical profession' there is very little (if any) regulation on it. Find one who is respectable and well known, with references and proof of where they went to school, then do some quick research on the school to make sure it isn't run out of someone's basement.

A chiropractor can help. They can do useful things. They can also seriously injure you and make it ten times worse.

That being said: it's likely a combination of working out more and a crappy mattress. What kind of work are you doing on your back, and are you sure your form is correct? If you're doing any kind of lift, and your form is crappy, you're going to /ruin/ your back.

Where in the back is it sore? Upper? Lower? Middle?

So you do have to have a license of some sort to be a practicing chiropractor? I mean, there has to be something that must be shown to the state that certifies "I am a chiropractor" before establishment of the business.

Bleh. Avoid any sort of bicep curl, or any other isolation-based movement or workout. Not only is it completely useless, but in my opinion it can actually cause a lot of skeletal-muscular issues. I'm doing some long term research on this theory, but regardless..

Isolationist movements (any movement that focuses on one particular muscle group or area (bicep curls are an excellent example)) are crap. Avoid them like the plague, even though that's what is in style now-a-days. They're in style because people don't know s*** about fitness. Also machines. Unless it's a machine you're using to build up to something else (Gravaton machine to build up to being able to do pullups, for example), avoid them. They not only are often isolationist movements, but they encourage lazy form. By having a track that the machine follows, you don't actually control your form, and so you pay no attention to it. Which is bad.

Because someone is going to ask, I'll explain why isolationist movements (and by extension, machines) are bad.

They only work a single muscle or muscle group (obviously, being isolationist). So lets name the main ones that people like to work on in the gym: Biceps (big one!), triceps, delts, traps, pecs, abs/core, quads, calfs. Some other ones too, but those are what most people, and most isolationist movements focus on. Did you know that there are between 650 and 850 (depending on who you consult) muscles in the body? So basically, you're only working on 8, maybe 10 if I missed a few. That's, forgive me for being blunt, dumb.

A lot of times, people say they work out so they're fitter and more healthy, but truthfully most people have one goal in mind: To look good naked. Which is great. But, why not look good naked, AND really be fit?

In order to be really be fit, what a lot of people call 'functional fitness' (which basically means you don't just have really strong biceps, you can lift heavy things and apply your fitness in the real world), you need to work on dynamic and full body movements. Olympic lifts are great: deadlift, the clean, jerk, snatch, overhead squats, etc. You have a bar with a bunch of weight on it, and you need to use certain muscles to keep it up (or down, or moving, or whatever), but you also use another set of muscles called secondary or stabalizing muscles, to keep it stable.

The chain is only as strong as the weakest link, so if you work on your biceps and triceps, but never any of the other muscles in your arm, you'll never truly be fit, you'll only have really big biceps. And sure, you might be able to curl twice as much as me, but when it comes to full body, realistic, real world movements, you get smoked. Which means in the real world, you'd get smoked.

So this is a rant that isn't entirely on topic, but if you're one of the kind of people that thinks "Hmm. Today I'm going to work on my arms" or legs or core or chest or back or whatever... you should seriously rethink what you're doing. Because why separate all of those into different areas? When are you going to come across a situation that requires only strong arms or strong legs? It's far more likely you'll be called upon to have strong arms, legs, chest, back, and abs. All working together. So why not train them all together?

[edit - oh, right, and machines suck because they focus, again, on one muscle group. And while you can do a lot of really interesting things to that muscle group, it ONLY works that muscle group. In addition to this, because the machine only allows the resistance to follow a specific path, the secondary "stabalizer" muscles never even are engaged, and thus never get worked. So if you ever had to resist something in that motion WITHOUT cords and a track, those stabalizer muscles would never have been worked.]

Okay, your rant is kind of "crap" by your own words. Yes, working out a single muscle group, like a bicep curl, is not going to get someone fit. We've all seen the gym rat that does the bench press and curls and nothing else. However, when said bicep curl is part of a much larger workout regiment that does work the major muscle groups, it's fine. The problem lies in the work out routines that people are using. Not in the exercises themselves.

Did some research, I guess my information was outdated, but still not too unaccurate.

Minimum requirement for a licensed, practicing chiropractor is 2 years of undergraduate education, and passing a test. There are higher levels (doctor of chiropractory) which seem more respectable, but you CAN get away with 2 years of school.

Source, Department of Labor site: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos071.htm

Avenger - Hypertrophy is hypertrophy, to an extent. They work, only because people have to put so much work into it. I'm not saying that they're completely ineffective. You design a big plan and work on all the major muscle groups, and they do all work, and you can get pretty strong working with just isolationist movements. But again, you're isolating certain muscle groups. Why? I have never really heard a well thought out and compelling reason to, when you could be using your time far more effectively by simulating movements you'd use in real life.

But you can get so much stronger, so much faster, and maintain that level of strength so much easier, with more dynamic and full body movements.

I know a lot of Firefighters (since that's relevent to you) that are discovering, and pretty quickly switching to, things like Crossfit, because it's so much more effective and applicable to what they need.

Well yeah. And mind you, I'm not talking about going to the gym to get ripped and big. It's also possible to build the strength you're talking about while staying lean and so forth. And I also agree that just lifting misses out on a lot of things. There are a lot of different ways to workout and they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

For me, when I was running chain saw over the summer, nothing got me fit for working that saw for hours at a time like running the saw for hours at a time because no exercise at the gym is anywhere near the same as manipulating that saw. However, the time spent working my arms and shoulders certainly didn't hurt.

You're right, I was thinking of something else. But chiropractic medicine is still based on bull****.

I... so totally read that as "Masturbation works wonders..." Continuing to read the rest of the quote ensures hilarity.

I was going to go the "don't be a pussy" route with this, but consistent back pain/stiffness for a full year? My feeling is, see someone with an MD, and don't settle for anything less. Don't take the chance of paying some wannabe to screw up your back for good, don't try and work out until you know what's wrong, and don't spend cash on a "therapeutic mattress" or anything of the sort until you've made sure it will do you some good.

Like Anovis pointed out, you have to consider that any advice here is coming from Dr. Massassi... as far as I know, none of us here are even pre-med. If you can get the same free chiropractic treatment that your girlfriend did, go for it and hope it works, but I wouldn't pay for that.

this

You're mistaking 'few' for 'all' again.

I agree with Emon. Having just gone through all of this in the last few months, this would have saved me a lot of time and money. Oh wait, I did go to a doctor first, but he was a LOSER (and young) and didn't seem to want to know what was wrong. He passed the buck to PT right away. And before you say anything, that wasn't the first time he's taken that sort of attitude. I've since changed doctors.

So, I guess I would go to a doctor who is interested in finding out what is wrong with you, and he/she will probably send you to either Physical Therapy or a back specialist. They won't recommend a chiropractor, but honestly, chiropractors are cheaper than PT, and if you feel that popping your back in various ways will bring you relief, it won't hurt to try. If it doesn't help, don't go back.

A good doctor will even tell you that if the chiropractor is helping, to continue going. Regardless of the debate here, I've had several friends and family members that swear by their chiropractors.

Obviously, DK, you're going to have to decide yourself.

Either way, you should get this resolved before I come and visit you this summer.