Lower back pain is the number one physical ailment people in the United States visit a doctor for treatment. While medical treatment options are often narrow and include rest, heat, and non-steroidal antiinflammatory medication, other proven remedies to heal a painful lower back are usually better options. Chiropractic, physical therapy, deep tissue massage, self massage, nutrition, and exercise usually render better and longer lasting results. Moreover, if a patient can give them self a treatment at home, it’s possible to speed up the recovery time. But what are some of the best ways to give yourself self-help for lower back pain? What tools should you use if any? Is ice or heat best for lower back pain? Can massage alone heal a bad back or are other treatments necessary? Finally, is there anything new in the treatment of lower back pain that hasn’t been discovered by the masses but is now making a difference for people to heal their painful lower back pain?
Okay, so let’s dig into some of these questions and expand on them even farther by first of all telling you we have good news for you if you suffer with lower back pain. There are new self-treatment programs that work. Further, there is a new massage healing tool for ower back pain and many other physical ailments that is getting great results around the world. In fact, people are raving about the way they feel and heal from lower back pain and other physical problems, sports injuries, and the like from our methods and the BuffEnuff® Power Massager.
Giving yourself good care for lower back pain begins with ergonomics. Look at your work environment. Do you stand all day, sit, or are you up and down? What type of surface are you standing on? Hard concrete, tile, and stone give little cushion for your feet or your back. The lower back has cushioning pads in between the bones called discs and these pads are vulnerable to compression caused by hard surfaces. Further, if you sit six or eight hours a day, the sitting position tends to increase the pressure in your discs like tires that have been over inflated making the discs vulnerable to injury. So if your work requires you to stand, get a pad for your work area, swap out your shoes for softer more supportive ones, and try to move your feet more, flexing your calves and stretching your legs often. Getting an ergonomic chair that has excellent lumbar support, raises up and down and can tilt slightly forward is key to help alleviate back pain from sitting jobs. Arm rests are also handy because they take the pressure off your back when you rest your arms on the arm supports. Regardless of the work environment, taking breaks and reducing stress in the work place is also paramount to helping you heal your lower back.
However, some of these changes are not always possible, and this is where having a BuffEnuff® can make a huge difference. With just a 3-5 minute massage on the feet, calves, lower back, neck and shoulders, it possible to feel revived, renewed and de-stressed. A simple way to use BuffEnuff® is to start with the Wrapping® technique. Hold the BuffEnuff® head flat on the body and then track back and forth on the back, the shoulders, calves, and over the top of the feet. If you can take your shoes off, even better, then you can work the bottom of the feet. Next, tilt the BuffEnuff® and smoothly work it into the muscles running along the muscle belly like you’re smoothing out wrinkles. Do this on the calves, hamstrings, quads, and lower back. Next stand up, hold the BuffEnuff® behind your back and with one hand on the battery and the other on the T grip. Place the flat pad against your back or tilt it slightly into your back. Bend at the waist forward and then back into slight extension. This is the Hinging® technique, and this can be done on any joint in the body. BuffEnuff® because it is portable and does not have a cord, it makes it the best percussion massager available for on the go care like this at work and home. Moreover, our product has the backing of a healing and athletic team with over 70 years in the sports and healthcare business.
Now on to ice versus heat. Of course any new injury should only have ice for the first 24-72 hours. Sometimes even longer if you have a chronic problem that is getting inflamed over and over again. For more chronic issues that have been going on for months and even years, using wet heat pads that can be heated in a microwave are great or a heating pad with a damp towel. Wet heat is better than dry heat. Hot tubs are also excellent especially if you stretch while sitting in them. But don’t go into a hot tub after an acute injury and let the swelling go crazy in your body. Too much heat is catastrophic in acute phases and this mistake has hurt many an unsuspecting person into a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale and becoming crippled. I saw people all the time in practice who thought it was a good idea to lie on a heating pad or sit in a hot tub after they hurt their lower back. HEAT IS BAD! in the begging. So stay away from it.
How long do you leave the ice or the heat on? Typically for ice about 10-15 minutes is great. Ice should be cold enough that it practically numbs the tissue and it gets reddened. Be careful to not to get a freeze burn by leaving the ice on too long. For heat, treatment time can be about double the time of ice. Again avoid prolonged time. It’s better to give more frequent treatments than prolonged. After the ice or heat, allow your body to rid itself of the inflammatory toxins or bring fresh blood to an area to warm it and help heal it. Once again, you can use BuffEnuff® when giving yourself ice or heat treatments. This is called Partnering®. Any time you use any modality, any exercise, or apply some form of hands on treatment with a BuffEnuff® Power Massager, this is Partnering®. Partnering®, like sharing, helping, and getting support works great and once again because the BuffEnuff® is portable, it makes it the perfect tool to offer in tandem with other modalities.
The power of the BuffEnuff® Power Massager coupled with other modalities multiplies the healing results and is superior to relying on single modality treatment. Whether you are using a foam roller, doing trigger point therapy, using exercise bands, or using it in between sets of bench press, the results you will have are going to surprise you and leave you with more strength and flexibility. The techniques are easy to learn, and we offer free webinars to help you learn how to use the BuffEnuff®. To register for the next webinar click on this link:
BUFFENUFF® POWER MASSAGER TECHNIQUE WEBINAR - JULY 11, 9 AM
So if you are after a new kind of recovery and something that is different than the usual stretches, foam roller mushing and pushing on muscles, using the techniques we have coined like Partnering®, Clearing®, and Hinging® along the other 12 we teach in this seminar will be the exciting beginning of a new chapter in your fitness and health.
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Be Fit, Be Flexible, Be Ready
Dr. Warren Bruhl, CEO/Co-Founder Percussion Fitness