How Do I Fix My Lower Back Pain?
Updated: Oct 20
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to lower back pain — and that's the best news. There are so many underlying causes and reasons for it that you want a specific approach to resolving your problem, not a generic fix.
Most of the time, your lower back is in pain because it's picking up the slack for something else that's lacking capacity somewhere else in your body.
Why Your Lower Back Is Actually Hurting
The lower back rarely fails on its own. It usually compensates for a limitation happening somewhere else in the kinetic chain. Here are some of the most common patterns we see in the field:
Tight hips
When your hips are tight, your pelvis and lower back move to make up the difference — taking on motion they weren't designed to handle.
A ribcage that isn't rotating
If your ribcage isn't rotating the way it should, your pelvis and lower back again have to compensate, doing jobs that belong somewhere else in your body. (Learn how the ribcage and pelvis should stack in the Buckets method.)
An acute injury with structural damage
Sometimes you've had an acute injury that caused real structural damage to your spine and nerves — a different problem that needs a different approach.
Nerve irritation
Sometimes you've got nerves that are stuck and continuously getting irritated, keeping the pain cycle going.
Stuck, Not Broken
At the end of the day, we all have human bodies — and with the human body, things get stuck before they get "broken." That means if you can take a clear look at the patterns of your movement, you can sniff out what's actually causing the issue, past all the symptoms at the surface, and solve the problem at its core.
Why Most Treatments Don't Actually Fix It
Your only way forward into a pain-free existence and performance relies on how much you know about your own body. If you've been dealing with lower back pain for a long time, chances are you've already seen the chiropractors, the PTs, the orthos, and the surgeons — and you're still in pain.
Most of the time, the "treatment" simply hides the symptoms instead of fixing the system that caused the issue in the first place. That can only produce one result: the system that caused the problem causes the problem again, and again, until it's actually addressed.
"Your only way forward into a pain-free existence and performance relies on how much you know about your own body."
A Simple Self-Assessment to Start With
Notice all of the terminology below is in layman's terms, easy to understand — that's what we're great at: putting complicated subjects into easy-to-absorb, easy-to-apply language you can actually use. Once you've gained the understanding, we can intentionally lead you to the resolution.
Run through this checklist and pay attention to what you notice — it's an amazing starting point that will highlight biases you had no idea were present:
Check your pelvic tilt.
Check your pelvic shift, side to side.
Check your pelvic rotation.
Check your pelvic positioning in relation to internal and external rotation of your hip joints.
Check if you're standing on the outside of your feet.
Check the balance between your "outside" (lateral) and "inside" (medial) lines of load in your musculature.
Check if you're too heel-heavy, or if you're living on the balls of your feet.
Curious why these positions matter? Read how posture affects joint pain.
We're more invested in educating our people so they can make informed decisions when they work with professionals — ideally becoming their own expert so they don't need or want to outsource their recovery — than we are in simply creating return business.
Ready to Get to the Root of Your Pain?
If you're looking for someone who practices their expertise with integrity, reach out to us. It would be our genuine pleasure to help get you out of pain.
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Written by V, Founder of ALiGN Training
V founded ALiGN Training to educate athletes and everyday movers on the why and how behind pain and movement, combining hands-on clinical experience with world-class athletes and a systematic, SMART approach to recovery. Learn more about our story.
This article is for education and isn't a substitute for an individual assessment. If you're in pain, get checked by a qualified professional.
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