How To Avoid Back Pain While Sitting Or Driving! Try These TWEAKS

hey everyone dr charlie johnson physical therapist and back pain specialist in today's video i want to talk a little bit about how i help people who are having lower back stiffness and problems uh specifically when sitting or driving nowadays uh you know we're working more than ever we're sitting more than ever and uh traffic is getting worse in case nobody's noticed around here in southeastern pa uh so we're sitting and taking longer commutes in the car so before i share how i sort of coach people walk people through this and some specific tips that one could utilize for anybody who's looking for natural relief call the problem with 484-552-3767 and driving is that it puts the lower back in a rounded position so zoom in here here's my seat here's the person sitting there and if we zoom in at the level of the lower back we see if the bones in the lower back kind of end up rounded and well there's structures in here specifically like disc that has fluid inside we can see that it can increase pressure towards the back of the spine and you know structures in the back of the spine can become irritating something about the back doesn't like that specific movement because it causes us discomfort and then what we see another complaint is that when people are sitting for a while they can't stand up very quickly because it's very stiff and it causes them to feel like they can't stand up tall there's a lot of they're sort of stuck and they walk hunched over until they eventually can straighten on up so this transitional movement is a problem so i want to talk about a couple strategies and i generally recommend for people who are having this issue so the first thing is that the back's sensitive to being rounded for whatever reason then we want to temporarily modify that so the first option is we could use a towel roll towel and i think i got a towel here here's one so i've got a towel take a towel a little bit bigger than this um and what you're going to do is you're going to fold it in half now ideally it's a little bit wider than this but just for the sake of showing it here and we can put like a a bungee cord or even a um a belt here and flop it over top of that and roll it really tight so that when you roll it up it's about three to four inches in diameter probably a little bit bigger than this and a little bit wider than this would be more ideal put some painters tape duct tape and then again the purpose of the belt or bungee cord or whatever going through the middle is that it can be strapped around a car seat so you don't lose it and it goes nowhere now with that being said how could we use something like this to prevent the back from going into this position well we could do is we could wrong marker put it right back here so notice we shove it right on the uh on the level of the of the belt in the lower back uh then it kind of creates a little support such that your back is unable to round so how do we place it properly a lot of people just sit a back support there and then sit on to it which doesn't really help instead we want to do is we want to shove the bottom in the crook of the seat and then hinge forward and shove this sucker right on the belt line so we sit up it's kind of pushing into our lower back and providing some support there now one issue i want to talk about is that might be helpful and if it is cool if it's not the other option is to use a wedge and notice in this example the level of the hips especially in sort of a bucket seat um you know scenario the level of the sorry the level of the knee is higher than that of the hip so what we see is that this causes the back to more easily go into a rounded position so how can we do that well we've got to get the knee lower than the level of the hip so what we could do is we could just drop the front of the seat down so then we're in a better position or if that's not an option and we still got the bucket seat we could build it up and we could sit on a wedge such that now you can see the knee is lowered and level to hip and what people often find is it's much easier to keep the back in an upright position so there's two options there now really the best way to do this and the ultimate way to find relief is to combine this with what i call a micro stretch so again people often have trouble with this transition so micro stretch number one which is a short efficient quick movement to give people relief is that before going from a sitting to standing position where they would normally expect a lot of stiffness just while sitting or even at work i recommend they just go and they sit up super tall for just about five seconds then relax super tall a little arch in the lower back and then relax and then go to stand so we'll just say up tall a little correction there with the posture um before standing and the second thing is once standing then i recommend they take their hands they put them on their hips like this and they push the hips forward and arch the lower back gently and they do this for about 10 reps the back bends 10 reps every hour to 2 hours and this before standing so again people um who have back stiffness and discomfort often don't like to sit or drive for long periods the idea and the concept is that something in the spine is sensitive to the spine being rounded so education wise we can use a towel or we can use a wedge to just put the body in a better position so it doesn't end up here and it ends up more like this so therefore we don't have the stiffness while going from a sitting to standing position and then we can combine that with movement using what i call a micro stretch quick stretch first up tall kind of correction to reduce stiffness while going from sitting to standing and then repeated back bends every one to two hours throughout the day to uh uh relieve stiffness so for anybody who found this helpful like comment or share please uh and or for anybody looking to get back to normal call five four eight four five five two three seven six seven thanks

Channel: Dr. Charlie Johnson, PT

Views: 2,342

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: royersford, limerick, phoenixville, collegeville, philadelphia, king of prussia, trappe, physical therapy, herniated disc, bulging disc, back pain driving, lower back pain driving, back pain sitting, back pain sitting in office chair, sciatica while sitting, sciatica while driving, piriformis syndrome, spinal stenosis

Id: lwrBCV3c5bg

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021