No More Back Pain

You can turn a bad back into a good back. Just 15 minutes a day can give you a lifetime of freedom from back pain.

BACK EXPERTS AGREE that one of the best ways to avoid back pain is to exercise: If you keep your body flexible, strong and well conditioned, they say, you're far less likely to get a backache.

Still, simply being active isn't enough, since back pain hits active men, too. (Sports greats Joe Montana, Larry Bird, Don Mattingly, Jack Nicklaus and Mario Lemieux all have bum backs.)

If you're among the 53 percent of men who have been laid low by back pain, you know what a downright frustrating and debilitating experience it can be. You're in agony, you can't work, you can't play, you can't walk, you can't get in and out of bed on your own, let alone make love while you're there. Back pain makes weak men out of strong ones.

But you don't have to take back pain lying down. The experts are right about the significance of exercise, but it's important to get the right kind. If your fitness regimen consists of playing tennis a couple of times a week, hefting weights solely to build killer biceps and riding your bike on weekends, you qualify as active, but you aren't doing much that will help build a stronger back. To do that, you have to target your back for its own exercise program.

Despite all the scary talk you hear about blown disks and degenerating joints, the vast majority of painful back episodes are caused by muscle strain, which, among active men, usually comes from two things, says Mitch Bogdanffy, an exercise physiologist at the Texas Back Institute (TBI).

The first is demanding more of back muscles than they can handle: lifting heavy objects improperly (the familiar advice to lift with the legs, keeping the back straight and objects close to the body, is ignored with astonishing regularity) or going overboard on leisure activities such as sports and gardening.

Take it easy at first

You're particularly at risk of throwing out your back with racquet sports, golf, bowling, football, canoeing, baseball, basketball or anything requiring lots of arching, twisting and sudden starts and stops. To minimize back strain from these sports, it's best to take it easy at the start of the season or when first learning, always easing muscles in and out of activity with warm-ups, cool-downs and stretches.

with warm-ups, cool-downs and stretches. A second cause of strain is weak muscles, especially in the abdomen. Strong abdominal muscles help to stabilize the lower back, the spine's most vulnerable point. Weak ones allow an exaggerated curve in the lower back, a posture that crimps muscles, nerves and disks.

One study found back-pain sufferers to have just as much back-muscle endurance as healthier people, but weaker stomach muscles. You don't have to be doing anything particularly strenuous to throw out your back if the abdominal muscles are soft-many men report being flattened by pain while bending over to tie a shoelace or pat the dog, or reaching around to grab a briefcase off the car seat. These actions by themselves don't cause the backache; they're just the straw that broke the camel's you-know-what

camel's you-know-what "A weak belly strains the muscles that run along the lower spine," explains physical therapist and fitness author Carol Greenburg. 'They are always being pulled, they are always resisting, and they simply get exhausted from the effort. Simple exhaustion can throw a muscle into spasm, a contraction that feels like a knot, hurts like the devil and won't let go for days."

let go for days." If your problem is weak abdominals (which it probably is if you're not currently doing anything specific to strengthen them), boosting the muscles with exercise is the best thing you can do to protect your back.

The YMCA Healthy Back Program, a respected exercise regimen that dates back to the 1940s, devotes its strengthening exercises almost exclusively to the abdominals. In an evaluation of 233 patients who took part in the program, 82 percent found that their usual back pain either stopped or decreased significantly. Only 2.5 percent of the participants showed little or no improvement Specifically, here's how building strong stomach muscles can help bolster your back.

It stabilizes the spine. 'The abdominal muscles and the low back muscles together form a column of muscles that must be strong all around," says Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., YMCA national strength-training consultant When strong and balanced, these trunk muscles ease the spine's structural and weight-earrying burden. "But if one side is weak, it may put excess stress on the spine and the nerves and tissue that sur• round it," Dr. Westcott says.

It cuts flab. A potbelly can make spinal instability worse. "For Americans, the abdomen is exercised very little, and it's where body fat tends to migrate," says Dr. Westcott It's a double whammy, like sending extra traffic to a congested bridge with weak supports. Something's got to give-in this case, your spine. Coupling a low-fat diet with a full exercise program that emphasizes abdominals may be as close as you can get to natural liposuction for the gut

It eases everyday movements. A strong abdomen helps the body cope with everyday resistive activities, whether moving furniture or climbing stairs, lugging a heavy suitcase or catching a ball. "If those abdominal muscles are weak, you']] overcompensate with your back," says TBI physical therapisl Paula Gilbert. 'This can lead to a back sprain over and over again. You need to have these stomach and back muscles synergized-working together-or your back will not respond well after injury."