September 23, 2015

About the Author:
Sara Bis­ton is an expe­ri­enced blog­ger who is pas­sion­ate about health and well­ness, nutri­tion and beau­ty. Sara focus­es on spread­ing pos­i­tiv­i­ty through her writ­ing, as well as edu­cat­ing and offer­ing advice on liv­ing a healthy lifestyle. Her pas­sion for healthy liv­ing became the cat­a­lyst for a major career change, you can fol­low her on Twit­ter, Face­book and Google+ for dai­ly inspiration.

HAVE YOU EVER SUFFERED FROM LOWER BACK PAIN AS A RESULT OF MOUNTAIN BIKING?

At some point in your moun­tain bik­ing career, you may have expe­ri­enced back pain. Back pain is a com­mon com­plaint from bik­ers, that comes along with some frus­trat­ing side effects — one of which is not being able to get back on your bike. It is often dif­fi­cult to treat low­er back pain — here are a few tips to help you stay com­fort­able while riding!

BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER

Before try­ing to treat your back pain, it is impor­tant to make sure some­thing isn’t seri­ous­ly wrong with your back. Vis­it a doc­tor and ensure that you don’t have a slipped disc or a frac­tured disc.  If you have suf­fered a seri­ous back injury, you risk mak­ing things worse if you don’t find out the cause of your back pain before you attempt to cure it.

THE CAUSES OF BACK PAIN

Moun­tain bik­ing does not direct­ly strength­en your back. You may be a great moun­tain bik­er, with the tech­ni­cal skills and finesse, but if you bike alot, and don’t focus on strength­en­ing oth­er parts of your body — you could suf­fer. If you start to feel back pain, focus on cre­at­ing strong back mus­cles around your spine to pre­vent injury. Car­ry out exer­cis­es to strength­en your back, if you neglect this part of your body when you bend your low­er spine for­ward while arch­ing your upper back, you will strain your back mus­cles, caus­ing pain. It is also like­ly that the pain can be caused by moun­tain bik­ing on uneven sur­faces which caus­es jar­ring and sud­den com­pres­sions on the spine.

HOW TO PREVENT AND CURE LOWER BACK PAIN

You will always be told that it is impor­tant to strength­en your core before you reg­u­lar­ly ride your bike. This is entire­ly true, and it is the best way to pre­vent low­er back pain. Strength­en­ing your core will ensure that your back is pre­pared for the stress you will face on the trail.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most peo­ple don’t realise that this is one of the caus­es of back pain until it’s too late.

If you are already suf­fer­ing from low­er back pain, you will prob­a­bly find that core strength­en­ing exer­cis­es feel as though they cause more harm than good. If this is what you are expe­ri­enc­ing, you will need to do a lit­tle bit more than just strength­en­ing your back. Take some time to recon­di­tion your body off the bike, to strength­en your back and core and allow your low­er back to ful­ly heal before push­ing harder.

EXERCISES TO CURE AND STRENGTHEN YOUR LOWER BACK

With any exer­cise, it is impor­tant to ensure you are fol­low­ing per­fect form to pre­vent fur­ther injury. Find a qual­i­fied coach or pro­fes­sion­al who can help ensure that you are doing every­thing safe­ly and to get the max­i­mum ben­e­fit out of your exer­cis­es. For more tips check out our 6 Awe­some Moun­tain Bike Train­ing Exer­cis­es.

1. MYOFASCIAL RELEASE

The first step is myofas­cial release, which a soft tis­sue ther­a­py that helps to treat skele­tal mus­cle immo­bil­i­ty and pain.

WHAT YOU NEED: TENNIS BALLS, YOGA MAT

Start by lay­ing on the floor with your knees bent and your feet on the ground.  Place a ten­nis ball on either side of your spine where the spine and pelvis meet. If you feel no pain, slide for­ward to roll the ball up your spine until you feel pain. If your back is healthy, there will be no pain any­where on your back. When­ev­er you feel pain, you need to stay where you are and breathe until you feel the pain relax. Once the pain has gone away, or you can’t take it any­more, roll the balls fur­ther up your back until you reach your skull.

After you have reached your skull, you need to work your way back down from your shoul­der blades. Place the ball under your right but­tock, then your left, then the side of your right leg, then the side of your left leg. This may cause  pain, but is incred­i­bly effective.

2. PSOAS RELEASE

The psoas is a mus­cle that con­nects the ver­te­bral col­umn to the brim of the less­er pelvis. A tight psoas can cause a lot of low­er back pain, which is why psoas release is incred­i­bly impor­tant when it comes to reliev­ing back pain.

WHAT YOU NEED: YOGA BLOCK, YOGA MAT

Lay down on a yoga mat with your knees bent, and place the yoga block below your rib cage. Start with the block clos­er to your butt, if you find this too easy, you can move it high­er. Use your arms to man­age the amount of weight on the block. Breathe!

Yoga is a great way to strength­en your core and treat back pain, prac­tice yoga before or after moun­tain bik­ing to see the max­i­mum ben­e­fits. Check out the Top Ways Yoga Ben­e­fits Moun­tain Bik­ers to learn more exercises!

Many peo­ple assume that low­er back pain is some­thing that you sim­ply have to endure as a moun­tain bik­er. This isn’t the case. If you keep your core strong and look after your back, then you can avoid low­er back pain and enjoy rid­ing to the fullest. Once you know what the caus­es of back pain are then, you can start to fix the prob­lem and ensure that you do not suf­fer in the future.

For more great health advice, check out Con­sumer Health Digest and 3 Exer­cis­es to Help You Stop Over-Think­ing.