What is the Cause of Your Back Pain?

A survey of common causes and possible remedies

What is the Cause of Your Back Pain?

One of the most common complaints I hear from the average bowler during leagues and tournaments is about ongoing back pain. The reason back pain is so common is that it can be caused by issues in multiple areas of the body. The pain travels through nerves and can be felt in the back despite its actual origin. There are many different issues that can cause lower back pain. Oftentimes, people tend to say that they’ve always had back pain and that it is probably caused by their sciatic nerve. In reality, however, it is much better to find out the real root of your problem rather than make a self-diagnosis.

To help those of you with back pain, I would like to share some of its causes along with the symptoms and methods to treat them. In many cases, you will find that improving your strength can not only treat the causes of back pain, but it can often prevent it from occurring completely.

Sciatic nerve pain

For some reason, when people have lower back pain, they often diagnose themselves with sciatic nerve pain without even consulting a doctor. The truth is that only one in 20 cases of back pain are actually from nerve root pain. What occurs in these cases is that a nerve becomes compressed or irritated, sometimes from a slipped disk in the spine. The pain from a pinched sciatic nerve can cause numbness and tingling and often spreads down an entire leg to the foot. In many cases, the pain is actually worse in the foot or leg.

Non-surgical relief for sciatic pain can involve alternating ice and heat to alleviate pain, epidural injections, chiropractic practice, pain medications, and sometimes acupuncture. You can work at preventing something happening to your sciatic nerve by learning how to properly lift objects from the ground and properly push and carry objects overhead. Sudden movements involving lifting, picking up, pushing, carrying, and rotating combined with a lack of ...



Heather Sterner

About Heather Sterner

Heather is an NSCA-certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, an ACE-certified Personal Trainer, a Certified Functional Strength Coach, and a Licensed Massage Therapist. She has a Master's in Kinesiology (Exercise Science). Heather is a former collegiate bowler for Robert Morris University and assistant coach for the University of Central Missouri. She currently works with athletes of all sports and has recently launched BowlFIT, a website with training programs for bowlers. Heather is also the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for SUNY Brockport.