I Healed My Chronic Lower Back Pain With a Short Daily Exercise

In 2001, I attended San Diego State University in Southern California. I enjoyed myself there. The beaches were beautiful, the weather was great, and there was lots of fun to be had.

Occasionally, my friends and I would cross the border into Mexico and party in Tijuana. On one day, we decided to head to Rosarito. We arrived there with no issues, and as most young, virulent college kids would do in a place like this, the drinking commenced.

But there was something very memorable from this trip that changed my life, in a bad way.

Rosarito, like a lot of other cities in Mexico, has restaurants and bars. I was at a well-known chain bar that had a large sandbox inside where people danced. There was a large pyramid-like structure with 6-foot-wide platforms leading up to a peak.

These pyramid platforms provided another place to dance by elevating you much higher and above the sandbox.

At some point, it seemed like a good idea to climb up the pyramid and take a running jump from the fourth largest platform step, sailing successfully to a nice soft landing on the sand. I would be jumping roughly 24 feet to land my entire body on the sand.

I was an athlete in high school. I enjoyed sports. But when I was drinking, I was an Olympian! I could leap tall buildings in a single bound, lift cars off the ground, and run faster than a cheetah.

At the time, it made sense that I could make this big jump to the sand. So, there I went, sailing in the air like a beautiful condor, hair flowing in the wind, perfect form.

And this is where I can confidently say reality sobered me up and jolted me back to the present moment. Not the being in mid-air part, but the landing part.

My sacrum, tailbone, and left ankle landed straight on the wooden platform with an enormous amount of force. The action was that of compression; my lower spine compressed and my ankle twisted badly. I was in excruciating pain.

It was the middle of the night, I was in Mexico, and I could barely walk. My friends were extremely drunk and did not care what I was dealing with.

The next 12 hours were probably the worst I had experienced in my life. I had to drive back home from Rosarito for 90 minutes while in unfathomable pain.

The moment we crossed the border, we headed straight to the emergency room. I was X-rayed and received the results quickly. I broke my tailbone and compressed my lower vertebrae.

Nothing broke in my back, but there was an enormous amount of inflammation in that area. My entire lower back and half of my buttocks were purple from internal bleeding.

I was young at the time, in my early 20s. The body has a remarkable way of healing, so throughout my 20s, I didn't have any major noticeable issues with my lower back.

But when I reached my 30s, that all changed. From the age of 35 to 40, I would get out of bed, hunched over, barely able to stand up straight, and feeling vulnerable. My lower back was arthritic.

If you have back pain like this, then you know how insecure it makes you feel. You feel like you can break with one wrong move.

As I moved around, slowly but surely, I became more limber, the pain became less, and I could get on with my day. It finally got to a point where I had enough. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I was roughly 39 years old, and I was practicing as a nurse leader in a research clinic, so I started to look into what kind of research there was for rehabbing a lower back.

I spent hours upon hours looking into different studies, understanding what was going on beneath the skin and in between my bones and vertebrae, and what I could do to heal this area. I tried a lot of different things.

Many exercise physiologists will tell you to strengthen your core, which I agree is important. Strengthening the core helps because stronger muscles can support you better, and since your core is basically your back, these muscles better support your back and take some of the pressure off of it.

A lot of studies talked about taking medications, which was something I did not want to do. NSAIDs—nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs—are commonly prescribed, but long-term use is not recommended. Harder drugs like narcotics come with a whole other host of issues.

I was looking for something that I could control, something that would give me autonomy.

One day, I came across a study that talked about inflammation in the lower back, joints, and the squat. I was intrigued. Discs are located between the vertebrae, and they are the shock absorbers in the spine. They can become compressed, displaced, or not even there through different mechanisms, which leads to a lot of pain.

Lower back pain is endemic in the United States. The prevalence of chronic lower back pain in the U.S. for people between the ages of 20-69 is 13.1 percent. In China, their prevalence rate is 4.2 percent. So, why such a big difference?

As I mentioned, it is probably multifactorial, but I will argue there is one thing besides obesity that plays a huge role in lower back pain prevalence and risks. And that is the squat.

I have a friend from China who gets in and out of a squat with little to no effort. I am always amazed to see him do it. He is so limber. In many Asian countries, the squat serves many purposes, one being it is the proper pooping position.

Think about the mechanics. Not only are you using your core and leg muscles to get in and out of this position, but it also elongates your lower spine. The more I learned and studied the squat position, the more excited I got about its potential to help me.

In my case, there wasn't a lot of space between the vertebrae in my lower back due to the compression injury I experienced; the discs were compressed. The study talked about the importance of elongating the spine, allowing fluid to get in between the vertebrae and the discs, in essence decompressing the spine.

I set out on a mission. I first researched the proper squat position. My body was not used to being in this position and I wanted to make sure I was setting myself up for success in placing my feet the right way and how upright my back should be.

I had to first use something to hold on to, so I could be in the right squat position. My body, the bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles needed to learn this new position I was putting myself in.

I started by squatting for short periods of time, 1-2 minutes. I slowly added more and more time, until I got up to being able to comfortably squat for a total of 10 minutes and not holding on to anything. The progression was amazing.

I do not remember exactly when it was that my pain disappeared, it wasn't more than a couple of months, but it did, and that is what matters to me.

I am certain the elongation of my spine in the squat position was what helped me the most because I did nothing else new in my routine during the time from back pain to back relief.

In addition, my strength increased in my core and legs and different smaller muscles in my back, that probably wouldn't get much work otherwise.

Since I was relieved of all lower back pain, I have also added the hang, where I grab my pull-up bar and hang on it to decompress other areas of my back. I think this would also be helpful for others experiencing back pain due to compression.

When you think about our evolution, humans have been squatting for a long time. We worked with our hands, and by squatting we could get close to the ground and do whatever it was we needed to do.

In the West, we barely ever squat; we don't really need to. We lose mobility almost from the moment we are born, and there is a vast difference with most Asian countries where they continue to use the squat purposely.

I believe I owe my life to the squat. I was miserable before I discovered its benefits. So, if you are anything like me, feel like I felt, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. And don't give up. It might take some time to start to feel better, but don't give up.

It will work. It did for me.

Christopher Kain, CEO of Kain Health Communications, is a master's prepared registered nurse with his focus being health and nutrition research.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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