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The Benefits of Walking On Back Health: Is Walking Good For Sciatica & Other Back Conditions?

In this episode we highlight the benefits of walking in the recovery process and just how it benefits the spine. We highlight how walking activates the muscles that support spine stability. We also cover off the potential prescription of walking in terms of frequency and duration to provide a guide for implementing walking into your recovery plans.

The Benefits of Walking On Back Health: Is Walking Good For Sciatica & Other Back Conditions?

Welcome to the Back Pain Solutions Podcast – The Benefits of Walking On Back Health: Is Walking Good For Sciatica & Other Back Conditions?

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Listen To The Episode Below

Episode Introduction

Walking is often overlooked in the recovery process of lower back injury. The strategy best suited for the individual is of course the one best fit for their specific problem but walking should almost always form part of the rehabilitation process. The effect of walking on the tissues in and around the spine is essential and similarly when we do not get this movement it can have a detrimental impact. Walking gives the injured person the advantage of speeding up the healing process as well as aiding the mental aspect of getting outside and remaining active. The mental aspect of walking is also fundamental in the recovery process. As we increase the ability to walk pain free, we are getting feedback from our body that we are recovering and thus we are building movement tolerance in the subconscious. 

In this episode we highlight the benefits of walking in the recovery process and just how it benefits the spine. We highlight how walking activates the muscles that support spine stability. We also cover off the potential prescription of walking in terms of frequency and duration to provide a guide for implementing walking into your recovery plans.

Some of the things you’ll discover:

  • How walking effects, the spine and injured tissues when walking 
  • How walking aids in recovery through activation of spinal muscles
  • What might be the ideal prescription of walking for you 
  • How the mental aspect of walking influences your lower back recovery
  • What you can do together with walking to aid your recovery

Episode Highlights

Walking is often neglected in the recovery process of lower back injuries, but it is a very important aspect of the healing process. Research, together with clinical experience, has shown us how movement is essential to pump fluids and blood around the body in order for tissues to get back to normal function. Walking is the most natural movement we can make and should be used to restore general physical movement. Considering this, we should understand that walking should be used in very specific dosages when we are injured and that the dosage depends on your injury. 

Episode Transcription

Intro 0:00
When we’re young, we move with freedom and confidence with a great resilience to injury. But somewhere along the line, we develop poor habits and become more vulnerable to back pain, back pain solutions features evidence based and practical advice to help you take back control of your health and get back to the activities you love. This is your guide to better back health through movement. So join us as we demystify some of the commonly held beliefs about back pain and build your confidence to a stronger back the smart way.

Jacob Steyn 0:28
Hi, there, everybody. And welcome back to the back pain solutions podcast. This is Jacob and I’ll be doing a solo today. And as always, please head over to the website, have a look at the content there. And like and share, give us a rating in iTunes. And please spread the word.

So today we’ll look at what we’re looking at walking, and what walking can do for us when we have a low back injury. How especially can walking be beneficial. For us when we are trapped in the situation of especially a chronic low back injury. I use the word trapped because when we have a real low back injury that’s limiting us to what we’re able to do means that we’re not only physically trapped, we’re also mentally trapped. And this can be very deep militating for a lot of us, especially if we’re doing sport, or we have the tendency to go for a walk on a regular basis. And all these things are limited.

So let’s have a look at what happens when we walk what effect it has on the body. And what it can mean to what it can do for us in terms of our healing and recovery process. So I generally prescribe this to all my low back patients. Because of the great effect that has, when you look at the hips of somebody walking, you’ll see that there’s a gyroscopic movement taking place. This means that the one side of the hip goes up and forward when the other side goes back and down and then alternates to the other side going up and forward while the other side goes back and down. And so we get this gyroscopic movement, which means the spine is alternating from left to right, moving forward and backward. So it’s moving in a circular motion, which means that the discs, which are usually the problem when we look at a low back injury, they are getting massaged. And so we have this, this pumping effect of fluids in and around the discs, which means we’re pumping fluid in and out we’re massaging the discs. And this is very important for the healing process. Compared to lying on a couch for a long time. Now we’re pumping fluid in and out. And as we know, the disk doesn’t get any blood. Like a muscle, which is completely filled with blood. In other words, nutrients will arrive there constantly. And so we have a very fast healing process when we’ve torn a muscle or when we have even when we have severe muscle pain after training, you know, but if we have a disc injury, and we have irritation or damage at the disc, this might take weeks months and in the case of a hernia sometimes years to stiffen and gristle and get strong again. So we want to assist this process we want to get it going. So we want to achieve attune to very fine movement, which is not going to irritate the back but which is going to allow the healing because of this pumping the fluid in and out of the disk. So besides this gyroscopic movement, we have the muscles around the spine around the pelvis, which are also supporting the back. So we have muscles very close to the spine like the motor for die, and other little muscles and also the quadratus lumborum these big muscles on the side of the spine just above the pelvis. And so when we walk, when we step onto one foot, these muscles individually from side to side or contract when we stepped on the other foot, then the other side will contract in the similar way which the the opposite side just contracted when we were on the other foot. So again, we have this left to right synergy in terms of stabilizing the muscles or stabilizing the spine using the muscles and this creates what we called another pump effect. And this is called the muscle pump effect. And so now we can use this muscle pump effect to pump away the swelling next to the spine. And so, again, we’re assisting and pushing fluids faster than we would if we would sit on a chair behind a desk, exclusively, or if we would be lying on a couch, for and waiting for their recovery to happen. So this, this muscle pump effect, and the pumping the fluids around the discs from the gyroscopic movement of the pelvis is crucial and very, very important.

So then we want to consider that if we have an acute injury compared to a chronic or recurring low back injury, we want to think of walking as being dose dependent, we can do too much, in other words, so we, if we have an acute injury, we might be sensitive to too much walking. And this is what I see a lot with patients. So if your body says after 15 minutes, it’s enough and we have muscles that are cramping up, that means that you should try and limit it to 10 minutes, or maybe even less, if it’s very acute, it might be a couple of hundred meters, the idea of just walking for 100 meters and back a few times a day is very, very good. So if we have a chronic low back injury, and we’re able to function, but the injury doesn’t seem to go away, then we want to look at maybe walking half an hour, 2025 minutes, twice a day, for example. My my advice to people even if it’s a chronic injury, and you’re able to walk long distances, would be to keep it to 15 minutes, three times a day. The reason why we do that is because we we constantly give the body the movement, we constantly pump away the fluids. And this is better than walking an hour every second day, for example. So more frequent, walking is better than less frequent. You don’t have to walk long distances for a long time this, there’s no need to do that, you know, keep it to a minimum, but make it frequent. And in this way, you will build tolerance, and you’ll be able to walk further. And as your injury heals. So then I would like to mention another point. And that is if you are going to walk and maybe you you’re someone who haven’t been walking a lot in the past, it might be that you experienced cramping up of their glute Meade, this is the buttock muscle a little bit to the side, which we often feel like. And we have the idea that it is the hip giving us pain the hip joint, but in fact, we don’t have the hip pain. If it’s real hip pain on the side, we all usually have that in the groin. And if we have a muscle cramping up there, it’s usually because these muscles are not used to walking longer distances. And so we want to do some accessory glute work posterior chain very light. And if we want to go a step further, we want to do some core strengthening exercises exercise which is going to help the core to be more stable, and posterior chain glute exercises which are going to assist in the walking process. So we really get this system going, you know, if we can have the benefit of walking properly. And we are working on a little bit more core stability and we’re assisting the glutes to do the job, then we are really moving the ball forward. So we’re heading towards getting rid of a long term chronic injury. And then I would like to say if you have a very acute injury, then you will have to not only stick to walking for example, but also to some relaxation exercises, we want to decompress the spine. And I usually suggest that once before walked 10 or 15 minutes, three times a day directly after walking through your relaxation exercises decompressed to the Tommy line. And I suggest have a look on our website for more tips and clues on how to do this. And then there’s also the mental aspect of having an injury. So if we have an acute injury, we’re not used to actually having back pain, and now we’re trapped inside might be a little cold winter time like it is just now outside, then getting out and just walking 10 minutes it’s going to really lift up the spirit. So not only taking care of the physical aspect of the recovery, but also the mental aspect as that plays a big part a big role in our recovery.

So I hope I have given you a few tips here today to go and look at and consider when you have acute or chronic low back pain. My suggestion is, you know, play with it and find something that works for you. Even if you’re limited in terms of work hours, you’re very busy. Once a day is better than nothing. Absolutely. If you can do before work, or after work, maybe park the car further away and do a little bit of a walk to work. Be smart about it. So thank you for listening to our podcast. That was a very quick update on how walking is beneficial for low back injury. please head over to the website, give us a rating and spread the word about the podcast. Have a good day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai