Today we're talking about what really is a low back muscle spasm and if you've been diagnosed with a low back muscle strain or sprain does it really mean anything. So for example, if you've been diagnosed with a low back strain or sprain unless you have a Jurassic mechanism of injury like you're doing a dead-lift and you pull the muscle while you're lifting something you know it's really uncommon to really have or to strain your low back paraspinal muscles that are just a symptom. If you're having some muscle soreness or you're having some low back muscle spasms you know these are effects it's very rare to truly get a low back sprain or strain and many physicians will just put on your script saying low back strain sprain just treat that really doesn't mean anything that means they don't know the real cause of your low back pain.
Now what does it mean when you have low back muscle spasms okay so whether it's a true strain or a sprain or a muscle spasm this is an effect, you'll have a cause and you'll have an effect now The effect of the low back injury is having muscle spasms that means that you know for example it could be like the way your body is protecting itself you have a back injury whether it's a facet joint a disc and your body is kind of protecting itself by inducing a muscle spasm it doesn't want you to bend forward or you're sitting all day is causing too much strain to your lower back thus is trying to protect itself. It doesn't want to move in that direction so then you get a muscle spasm
The muscle spasm is not the problem, there's some sort of underlying factor injury something that predisposes you to have the muscle spasms or the muscle tightness or I like to use the word muscle hypertonicity so if you've been diagnosed with just a sprain strain that doesn't mean anything and there's some sort of underlying principle if you're experiencing muscle spasms in the low back area there's something overloading the lumbar spine or there's some injury that's underlying it that's causing the muscle spasm now the answer to your problem is can you identify what that risk factor or that underlying problem is or the injury that's causing it many times if it's a herniated disc you know and you have muscle spasms from there you may have leg pain that's shooting down the back or the front of your leg and you'll say that sitting aggravates it a lot and maybe standing a walking makes it better.
It was just an acute injury like you injured yourself in the gym many times if you try to get back to that same lightweight lift or that same maneuver you'll probably get back pain again your body's not ready to return to that activity many times if you're sitting at work and you're getting muscle spasms at work it's the sitting the position that you're in that's overloading the low back thus getting the muscle spasm and your body trying to protect itself.
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