Strength and conditioning treatment for low back pain with your Melbourne city CBD osteopath
Author: Heath Williams, osteopath, strength and conditioning coach
Strength and conditioning and exercise strategies for low back pain
At Principle Four Osteopathy clients will often book into see our team for the treatment of acute and chronic lower back pain complaints and often we will integrate education, manual therapy and movement into our clients programs according to their needs and goals. One of our key aims is to empower our clients to get moving and actively manage their lower back pain by getting them to undertake in activities that they enjoy and also to address any limitations or deficiencies that have been identified through our movement and capacity testing.
How we integrate exercise as part of your low back pain management
Depending on the nature of your complaint and your specific goals, we may look to implement active management strategies into your work day i.e. movement breaks that include general movement and mobility to break up static working postures. We may also prescribe regular walking or other general movement i.e. hydrotherapy, yoga, pilates or resistance training. If you are needing a specific exercise program to address any flexibility/mobility limitation or local or global strength and endurance work, we will take you through a detailed assessment and prescribe a customised exercise program that can be implemented at home or in a gym program.
Why our Melbourne city cbd clinic is different?
Our osteopathy clinic is more than just 4 walls and a treatment table. We certainly think that manual therapy is helpful and have 2 private clinic rooms as a result of this and will often incorporate manual therapy into your sessions when needed. We have also dedicated a large portion of our clinic to be an open space where we can assess your movement and prescribe you an exercise program that suits your needs. We have a range of equipment accessories available to assist in prescribing an appropriate exercise program. What your exercise program looks like will depend on your specific complaint, what your assessment findings show us and what your goals are. For some this may look like a daily stretching and mobility program, whereas others this may look like ground based pilates, yoga or resistance training.
If you are currently already undertaking regular exercise through small or large group classes or with a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach, we will communicate directly with your coach or trainer to inform them of your current limitations and how any external training being undertaken should be modified to assist you in your recovery.
What does a strengthening session with our osteopath look like?
Before we get started with any exercise or strengthening sessions, our osteopath will take you through the following steps:
Case History
Our practitioner will sit down with you in our private consult room and spend 20-30 minutes discussing your injury, your concerns, your current limitations, broader health and well being questions as well as what your goals are. All of the information gained through this first phase of the consultation will help us plan out our assessment and future treatment and management strategies.
Movement Assessment
The next phase of our consult involves taking you through a range of movement assessments. Here we will assess your gait, specific tasks that aggravate your complaint as well as undertaking isolated and more global movement and capacity assessments. Information gleaned from this phase of the assessment will guide the specific exercise program that we prescribe.
Tailored exercise program
Our osteopath will design and deliver you a specific exercise program to address any limitation identified or where there are opportunities to improve strength, endurance and other physical capacities. The goal is to assist you in getting out of pain, but also to build your capacity so that you are robust enough to deal with the demands of activities of daily living, work demands and any other goals that you may have.
Addressing mobility and flexibility
Should you need to focus on improving flexibility or mobility, our practitioners will demonstrate and have you perform these movements to ensure you are capable of performing them independently at home. We will photograph or video these for you and create a program that outlines in detail what you need to do, how often, how many and for how long to get you moving better.
Prescribing a tailored exercise program to address your strength and endurance
Our osteopaths will prescribe you a tailored strength and endurance program. Depending on what your assessment findings reveal and your overall goals, we may prescribe a variety of ground based body weight exercise, pilates and yoga type movements and resistance training. We will also prescribe a program that can be easily undertaken at home and if you only have limited exercise equipment, we will design one that suits your needs. Should you already be training at home with a home gym or attending a gym, we can also prescribe resistance based exercises using equipment and machines that you have access to.
What if you are getting back pain from a specific exercise?
If you are currently a regular trainer in the gym and find that certain movements aggravate your back, let us view how you perform these movements and undertake an assessment to determine if we need to modify the exercise and work around the program or whether we need to take a step back and work on areas around the back to assist you in getting back to that exercise without pain. Common exercises that many of our clients report to experience pain with include trunk based exercises such as planks, side planks, compound movements such as deadlifts and squats. Sometimes we may need to coach the exercise slightly differently to how you are performing and this will allow you to continue performing it without any back pain, whereas other times we may need to regress the exercise or swap it out for an alternate exercise in the short term whilst we address some of our assessment findings that we suspect are contributing to you experiencing back pain whilst performing the exercise.
Are our osteopaths the right fit for you?
If you have any questions about your back complaint and whether we can assist, we encourage you to give us a call 03 9662 2147 or email us at info@principle4.com about any questions that you might have. One of our practitioners will give you a call to discuss your specific questions and how we can assist.
Melbourne CBD Osteopathy Clinic Location
Our osteopathic clinic is conveniently located in the heart of the Melbourne City CBD at 178 Collins st. We are easily accessible for all in the CBD via tram, training, walking or driving.
For those coming from nearby inner Melbourne suburbs, we are a short walk from the train at Flinders St and the nearby intersections of Collins and Swanston and Collins and Russell st.
Find out more about our great range of health services below:
Ergonomic workstation assessments
Book your osteopathy appointment today by calling 03 9662 2147 or book online here.