THE JOURNAL
Illustration by Mr Jasper Rietman
You wake up to a dull ache in your lower back. You plant your feet on the floor, stand up, and the ache explodes and radiates. You walk to the bathroom and brush your teeth, pain stabbing, and as you bend forwards to spit toothpaste, you support your weight on the sink with your hands because, frankly, it’s knee-crumbling agony if you don’t. As the day goes on, the pain subsides – though it pops up at multiple inopportune moments – and before you know it, you’re waking up in bed the next morning and repeating the whole thing over again.
At 37 years old, this has been my existence for as long as I can remember, exacerbated by the experience of watching my eight- and five-year-old children bounce out of bed first thing with the smallest of efforts. I’m not alone with my less-than-adequate back – a recent survey by Arthritis Research UK and Imperial College London revealed an estimated nine million people in England live with back pain. And according to Dr Robert Griffiths, of London’s Pro Performance and chiropractic doctor who has treated Olympic athletes, Glastonbury headliners and royalty, as a population, we’re experiencing back pain more than ever.
As is often mentioned, the pandemic has led to ballooning levels of stress and anxiety, and to questionable work-from-home postural habits. (Slouched on the sofa with your neck bent forward, anyone?) So, what can we do about it? Read on.
01.
The upper back
The most common problem Griffiths sees in his patients when it comes to the upper back, is what he calls “text neck”. “This is where you’re looking down, at a screen, for a prolonged period of time,” he says. “The discs in your neck bulge and create a slipped disc, which then causes pins and needles in the arms and pain down into the hands.”
The best way to fix text neck? Elevate your screen so that the middle of it is at eye height. This helps your neck maintain a neutral position. Griffiths also advises investing in a standing desk so you can stand for at least 50 per cent of the time, enabling a variety of postures throughout the day. On top of that, a corrective exercise programme that strengthens and stabilises your core muscles and pulls your shoulders back – to encourage height in your posture – will help counteract the effects of text neck.
Should you just ditch the chair altogether and stand the whole working day? For Griffiths, spending half your time sitting and half your time standing is a good ratio to aim for – one hour on, one hour off.
02.
The middle back
Pain in the middle back – or thoracic spine – is less common than in the upper and lower areas. What Griffiths sees a lot of, however, is a rounding of the mid-back – especially in men.
“We all love looking at our mirror muscles in the gym – the pecs, the abs,” he says. “So, people will spend disproportionate amounts of time doing bench presses, chest flys, sit ups – anything that rounds and hunches you forwards, because then you look more jacked.”
The result is an imbalance in your spine, giving you that Quasimodo-esque gym-bro look, which is then exacerbated by sitting at your desk all day and reinforcing those bad habits. To balance the imbalance, Griffiths recommends extending your spine backwards over a foam roller and stretching your hip flexors and pectoral muscles. If you’re in the gym, spend more time doing pulling exercises to open up the chest and strengthen the back.
03.
The lower back
According to Griffiths, lower-back pain is “hands down” the most common type of back pain – something that most of us will experience in our lives at some point. “There’s two main things that go wrong with lower backs,” he says. “The first is similar to the neck, where you have a disc that’s bulging. You’re doing too much forward bending, slouching, sitting on the sofa, sitting in cars. That gives you sciatica, creating severe pain.
“The other thing is the joints in your back – the facet joints – get slightly compressed when you sit down and don’t move enough.” Between our joints we have synovial fluid, which acts as a lubricant. And when we compress our back joints, this fluid stops being produced, which causes sticky, adhesive joints. “You end up with facet joint irritation,” says Griffiths. “Your joints inflame, giving you a large, sharp pain and you end up with a muscle spasm.”
04.
Back to the future
“You,” Griffiths says, “are a professional sitter.” Ouch. “Your body doesn’t know what you do as a journalist, it knows that you’re a sitter. You need to train to correct that and counteract the negative effects of your day-to-day activities by building in exercises and habits that will give you those nice healthy joints and muscles.”
Sleep, diet, weight and stress levels all have an impact on back pain, Griffiths tells me. Do your best to fix them. But if you have these things figured out and you’re still in pain, the answer (as long as the pain is relatively minor) is, surprisingly, very simple: move more.
“Increase your background activity,” Griffiths says. “Increase mobility in key areas like your hip flexors. On top of that, do some balance core work – planks, side planks, bird dogs, all very spine-friendly – so you’re addressing the front, sides and back.”
If you do those exercises every day, like brushing your teeth, he promises your spinal joints will be moving well, and that you’ll “be sorted for the majority of your life.” All it takes is 30 seconds of each exercise.
Ultimately, it’s all about mixing things up. Griffiths has a saying: “your next posture is your best posture”. Which is to say don’t just sit or stand like a robot – regardless of how good your posture is. Be constantly moving.“Set your alarm every 30 minutes to remind you to change your posture,” he says. “If you’re on the phone, go for a walk. Every time you go to the toilet, do some gentle stretches. Variety is the best option.”