HEALTH- 5 worst sports for back pain

It’s one of life’s great conundrums. How do you exercise something that needs exercising, if it hurts when you exercise?

Frequently patients suffering from back pain are advised to stay mobile and make sure they take regular exercise, even if it’s gentle. The problem is, sport is the most obvious way to get exercise, yet sport also often feels like it’s doing your back no end of disservice.

Everybody is clearly different, and different movements effect everyone in different ways. However, some sports are definitely worse in terms of how much strain they place on the back when compared with others. Here are five we can think of that you might just want to avoid, if that weren’t obvious enough already.

Dancing

Is this a sport? Well, yes, in many ways it is- it can be competitive, gets scored, and requires a lot of energy. And even when you’re just throwing a few shapes on the dance floor for pleasure you need to be careful, because the kind of jarring movements most dances involve are no good for the old spine.

Tennis

Lunges, dives, stretches, twists- do any of these words sound like they are friends with your old back? In a word ‘no’, so sadly no matter how many dreams you had of one day making it to the Grand Slams, once the spine starts to speak up it’s best to put those thoughts aside.

Jogging and running 

This is really frustrating. Going for a run can be really good for clearing the mind and getting you focussed, or even just relaxed. In contrast, your back does not enjoy feet slamming down onto a hard surface, over and over again, bringing your body down with them. Basically it’s too high impact.

Trampolining 

‘Well of course I’m not going to bounce around on taught-yet-springy material when my back already feels like a coiled spring’, we hear you cry. Fair point. Nevertheless, if we’re listing stuff you should definitely avoid doing then this has to be included. It might be fun, and yes it is remarkably good exercise, but it’s also too, well, trampoline-y.

Weight lifting 

This is slightly more complicated than our other choices. Weights are not really high impact, but they do place an awful lot of strain on the back and that’s why weakened spines are not cut out for this sort of thing. It might be that your back is bad for a different reason and weights would be fine, but seek professional advice first.

Image credit: (C) @markheybo on Flickr