Runners get back pain! Although is not the most common injury runners face like shin splints or anterior knee pain, it accounts for 7 to 13% of running related injuries. Most runner’s with low back pain share common mobility deficits that contribute to their pain.

1. Over-striding

This occurs when a runner’s foot makes contact with the ground far outside their center of mass. In theory, this leads to higher ground reaction forces transmitted into the body. These forces are then absorbed by the muscles, joints, ligaments and other musculoskeletal structures. When over-striding the forces may be higher in general. This may lead to additional stress on the back

In order to make quick changes to your form to diminish ground reaction forces, change your cadence. Cadence is how many steps you take per minute while running. Through increasing the cadence by 5% while maintaining the same speed, the overall impact per step will decrease by >20%. In return, the stress on the back will reduce. 

2. Hip Extension

The hip is a highly mobile joint! It needs to have a wide range of motion into extension when running- around 30 or more degrees. When hip extension is limited, the body will substitute motion using the spine. Meanwhile, the lumbar spine is not a highly mobile structure. Each spinal motion segment (L4-5, L5S1 etc) has only 1 to 5 degrees to extension. If the spine must compensate repeatedly due to limited hip flexibility then the likely outcome will be back pain.

These videos demonstrate a self test for hip mobility as well as a favorite stretch of mine to improve it:

3. Lower Extremity Strength

The muscles of the lower extremity absorb the majority of shock associated with running. When these muscles are weaker more stress is transferred to the spine. So to set the spine up for success with running, strengthen the legs. In fact, a study compared the effects of lower extremity strengthening to core training for runners with lower back pain. The researchers found the runners who performed leg strengthening had less pain and improved function!

If you are dealing with LBP and do not know where to start, contact me to get the ball rolling!