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Tried Everything for Back Pain? Here’s What You Might Be Missing

Back pain can be hugely frustrating, especially when you’ve tried multiple treatments with little success. It can affect your life and limit what you are able to do.

Whether struggling to sit at a desk all day, or finding it hard to get out of the bed in the morning, we can offer you some hope that most back pain is easily treated with a few strength exercises.

If you are in Warwickshire and feel like nothing works, it is time to take a fresh look at why your pain persists, and what can be done to fix it permanently.

Understanding Chronic Back Pain

Back pain isn’t just about discomfort; it affects your ability to work, exercise, and enjoy everyday activities. Many people feel trapped, believing pain is just something they have to live with, especially as they get older. However, the truth is that back pain is rarely a lifelong condition, more often it is simple to fix, it just requires the right approach to treatment. Any treatment you may have tried, that doesn’t include targeted strength work, is unlikely to fix back pain. Many clients come to us saying they have been given exercises elsewhere, but when we look at the exercises they have been given, they are mostly stretches. Sadly stretches alone will not fix back pain.

Why Traditional Approaches to Back Pain may have failed you

Most people with Back Pain will have started with the NHS, who will probably have given out pain killers but are unlikely to have done anything more. Pain killers may take the edge off, but for chronic pain, they tend not to give lasting relief. Many people try quick fixes such as generic exercise programs or stretches, they have found off the internet. For some this may help, but for most, they only work in the short term and the back pain tends to return again after a few weeks or months. The issue? Most treatments focus on symptoms rather than the root cause of your pain.

Some common but ineffective approaches include:

  • Painkillers and Anti-Inflammatories – While these can offer temporary relief, they don’t address the cause of the pain.
  • One-Size-Fits-All Exercise Plans – Not all back pain is the same, these may give some short term relief and in a few lucky people provide longer term relief, but for most the relief is short lived or not present at all.
  • Resting Too Much – While rest is sometimes necessary, most back pain actually gets worse with too much rest. This is because the muscles weaken if they are not used.

The Solution: A Biomechanics Approach to Back Pain

At The Reinge Clinic, we specialise in biomechanics-focused physiotherapy and sports therapy. Rather than just treating your pain, we assess how your body moves to find the underlying issue. Often, back pain is a result of imbalances elsewhere – such as weak core muscles, poor posture, or even foot alignment problems.

Lower Back Pain

The first thing we check when we look at someone with lower back pain is their pelvis position. The pelvis is a large structure and the position it sits in affects your spine position, as well as all the muscles that attach on to it. Being such a large boney area, a lot of muscles attach onto it and they get stretched or weakened depending on the position of the pelvis.

It is possible for your pelvis to sit in an anterior position, effectively tipping forwards, in a backwards position, tipping backwards. It can be in a rotated position, or one side can sit higher than the other.

A pelvis that sits in an anterior position, will overly arch the lower back, and this can cause the vertebrae to sit closer together. Vertebrae that are too close can rub, causing disk and degeneration issues over time. This will cause back pain over time.

A pelvis that sits in an anterior position effectively flattens the lower back, causing the lumbar curve to disappear. This also means the vertebrae of the lower back are sitting in the wrong position and over time this will cause pain.

So, what can we do about this. Well, the pelvis’ position is controlled by many muscles but collectively these are known as the “core” muscles. These are muscles everyone knows about but few actually know how to activate and train. Sitting on an exercise ball is a great way to start to engage these muscles, but we can show you how to activate these muscles and provide a whole range of exercises that will ensure these muscles start to stabilise your pelvis.

We have many clients who come in to us with back pain and a pelvis that is sitting in a poor position, but they go to Pilates regularly and therefore assume they have a strong core. You would be surprised how many of these clients actually don’t know how to activate their core. If you are thinking of starting Pilates, which, done correctly, absolutely activates the core, opt for a small class of no more than 8-10 participants. That way the instructor can check you are activating your core correctly, ensuring you get the best result from the class.

Upper Back Pain

Upper back pain often refers to pain between the shoulder blades, it can head into the shoulders and even give headaches. So where does this pain come from and how do we treat it.

This pain is often do to poor upper body posture, sitting at a desk for too long, or looking at tablets and phones. We usually see a client who has a forward head posture and rounded shoulders. The shoulder blades are designed to sit at an equidistant position form your spine. The muscles that control that position attach onto the spine. If the shoulder blades start to round forwards, it puts a lot of strain onto these muscles, and they feel tight, knotty and painful.

Many people will go for a massage at this point and ask the therapist to loosen these muscles to relieve the back pain. Thought this rarely provides relief for longer than a few days. This is because the cause of the issue hasn’t been resolved. The muscles are tight because of the position of the shoulders, so to resolve the pain, we have to release the front of the shoulders. This will allow the shoulders to drop back into the correct position and relieve the muscles.

This loosening, however is only temporary, to get a lasting response, we need to strengthen the muscles that hold the scapular in the correct position. Otherwise they will just drop back into their previous position again. Stretching the front of the shoulders and using a band to strengthen the back of the shoulders, is the way to resolve this problem. Stretching alone will not rectify this upper back pain.

Why This Approach Works

Unlike standard treatments, we focus on:

  • Identifying the real cause – We look beyond your back to understand your posture and how your whole body is aligned
  • Personalised treatment plans – No generic exercises, we target specific muscle groups to ensure your back pain is permanently resolved.
  • Long-term results – We don’t just relieve pain; we help prevent it from returning.
  • A Multi-Faceted Approach – Combining physiotherapy, sports therapy, and biomechanics to create a treatment plan unique to you.

Success Stories: Real People, Real Relief

Many of the clients who visit us have tried many other therapists and many treatment options. They come to us as a last resort in the hope of finally resolving what is looking like a lifetime living with back pain.

Case Study: From Chronic Pain to an Active Lifestyle

Sue, a 70 year old lady who suffered from severe back pain and mobility issues from Arachnoiditis, an inflammatory condition of the spine that currently has no cure.

“At the beginning of 2016 and after 40 years of chronic nerve pain to the spine and lower limbs caused by a failed medical procedure in 1969 I was struggling to walk about or drive. After many visits to the Pain Clinic and after consulting numerous and diverse specialists my prognosis was extremely grim probably ending in being wheelchair bound. Fortuitously I visited The Reinge Clinic. I had absolutely no expectations, but after studying my MRI scan and examining my body, I was pleased to be able to report that after a few treatments, within weeks, the pain to the coccyx (which was the worst area) had all but disappeared. I cannot speak highly enough for the way that my quality of life has improved since I first visited The Reinge Clinic”

This client is not unusual, though her condition is. We resolved her pain using simple strength work, we started with the core and built out to the rest of her spine and body. The result was that she was able to live pain free and even access a mainstream exercise class. – Read a magazine article of this clients journey here.

If you’re tired of treatments that don’t work, let’s find out what’s really causing your pain. Book a consultation with The Reinge Clinic today and discover a better way to move pain free.

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