Lower back pain, and
the everyday things
it has made harder
You've started thinking twice before picking something up off the floor. Nobody decides to do that. It just happens.
You've started thinking twice before picking something up off the floor. Nobody decides to do that. It just happens.
Most first appointments start by asking how bad it is, out of ten. You have probably answered it before. The problem is that your answer changes very little about what happens next.
What actually shapes the session is which movements have become hard. You can check a movement in a way you cannot check a number: either you can do it or you can't, you can watch it, and you can check it again later without relying on memory. Two people who both say seven can have very different problems. Two people who have both stopped bending to the floor usually have something much more similar.
And the boundary is the same here as everywhere else on this site: if it turns out to need a diagnosis, a scan or a prescription, Jonathan will say so and point you to the person who can, rather than work around it.
Five everyday movements. Tick the ones you now have to think about before you do them, and see what each one needs from your back.
What it needs
Where Jonathan starts
What it needs
Where Jonathan starts
What it needs
Where Jonathan starts
What it needs
Where Jonathan starts
What it needs
Where Jonathan starts
Tick the ones that are true. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent. The list is for you to read and bring with you.
This describes five movements. It is not an assessment of your back. The first session is for working out which of them matter in your case, and if anything needs a scan or a prescription, Jonathan will point you to the right person.
What it needs. Bending and turning at the same time, with no weight involved. It is often the first thing to go, and the last thing people think to mention.
Where Jonathan starts. Whether your hip can turn. If it can't, the turn still happens, but further up, in your back.
What it needs. One bend, shared between your hips and your back. The fact that you now think about it first is worth mentioning.
Where Jonathan starts. How that bend is actually being shared between your hips and back right now.
What it needs. Turning without using your hips. Keeping your legs together stops your hips doing the turning, so your back does it instead.
Where Jonathan starts. Your glutes, and the sitting you had been doing just before you turned.
What it needs. Nothing, and that is the problem. You hold one position so long that the front of your hip tightens up.
Where Jonathan starts. What has tightened at the front, not what is aching at the back.
What it needs. Hours in one position that you can't adjust, because you're asleep.
Where Jonathan starts. Where you hold tension when you are resting, which is not always where you hold it when you are moving.
Every one you have ticked depends on your hips. That is true of these movements, not a verdict on your back, and it is why Jonathan often starts below where it hurts.
I was suffering from severe lower back pain to the point where I could barely walk. Every movement was painful, and it was affecting every part of my daily life.
Review 01 of 03
That is why a session rarely starts where it aches. It starts by working out which movement has gone, and why.
Book a sessionNo, that's completely normal. Most people can point to where it hurts and not much else, and that is what the first ten minutes are for. The list is there to help if you can use it, not something you have to get right before you book.
Possibly, and Jonathan is the one who will say so. He is not a physiotherapist, and this is soft tissue work, one-to-one. If what you have turns out to need a diagnosis, a scan or a prescription, he will tell you and point you at the right person rather than keep you on the table.
Yes. Two of the five movements above happen sitting down, not in the gym, and long hours of sitting is one of the two main causes Jonathan sees behind lower back pain. If your neck and shoulders are involved too, the desk page is a better fit and covers sitting in more detail.
Both, and in that order. Jonathan checks your hips and glutes first. Then he works on the lower back itself, and on whatever is really causing it. Nobody comes in with a sore back and leaves without it being worked on.
Some of it can, and it's better to say so than promise otherwise. Deep tissue work on an area you have been protecting for a while is uncomfortable at the time. But you should never be gritting your teeth in silence. Jonathan checks in as he goes, and you can ask for more or less pressure at any point.
Tell Jonathan that. It's one of the most useful things you can say. What was worked on, for how long, and whether anything changed for a day or two afterwards all help him narrow it down. It is also why this page asks which movements have gone, not how bad it is. A lot of people have already paid for an hour on the sore spot.
Bring the list. Which movements have gone is the first thing he'd ask anyway, and it is easier to say than describing where it hurts.
Book a sessionOr start from where you are: something already hurts, or nothing hurts yet.
