Studies have confirmed that standing for long periods of time, a routine part of a police officer's job, causes back pain. While 62% of police officers suffer from low back pain, only 9% experienced low back pain before joining the force. These statistics show us that low back pain can unfortunately be one common and negative side effect of being a law enforcement officer.

I get this question a lot from patients, but also from friends, relatives, friends of friends, etc. There is so much information out there, often conflicting, it can be paralysis by analysis. I think most of us are aware of the adage, “sitting is the new smoking.” I don’t want to spread a fear of sitting. Awareness would be a more useful term for me to use. Here’s a potential surprise for some folks out there. Sitting might provide relief for some spinal conditions... yes it’s true.

Whenever I go to social gatherings and people inevitably ask, “what do you do?” And I proudly reply, “I’m a physical therapist.” A frequent response is, “Well, I have ____ going on. I looked it up on the internet and I think it might be ____. Does that sound right?” Another common question is, “I have back pain, it’s really nothing, but it comes and goes. I like yoga. Is it okay to still do yoga or will that hurt my back?”

Your mother always told you breakfast was the most important meal of the day! Well, my version of this has become: “Win the morning and your back will feel better all day.” My sister taught yoga for several years, which worked out for me well. I got to tag along and take her classes for free! When she taught in the mornings, she would often say, “your spine is most honest with you in the morning.” I would wholeheartedly agree.

Everywhere we go, people are staring down at their phones –– hunched over, shoulders rounded, head forward. The long-term effects of this are shocking. There’s even a study showing people are growing ‘horns’ in the backs of their heads because of this prolonged posture.

In my previous post, we covered the benefits of learning how to breathe properly, as well as the foundation of our breath outlined by diaphragmatic breathing. Once you have learned the basics of proper breathing, you can move into different breathing techniques to foster a positive healing environment for the body and aid in managing stress. Other prerequisites are to find a comfortable seated posture and a calm, inner focus. My recommendation is to experiment with each and find the technique which resonates with you. 

If you’ve ever dealt with sciatica, the very mention of it may give you the chills. It can be rough and nearly mind-bending discomfort –– or you could experience it as “tingling” or “tightness” that comes and goes. I would describe sciatica as symptoms radiating down the back of the glute, thigh, lower leg and foot. This is a gross oversimplification, but at least it embraces many of the phenomena that would qualify as stemming from your sciatic nerve. If you’re like most people, you’ll probably either let it go and think it’ll eventually go away on its own, or you’ll make one of the common mistakes below. Unfortunately, these mistakes can land you in a heap of trouble and you may find your life becomes more limited in the process. Take a look and see if you may be making these mistakes:

I’ve read countless blogs on posture that display some version of the stretch above. I wouldn’t recommend this stretch for one simple reason: when so much of your time is spent with your head down and forward, why encourage your body to be more flexible in that direction? While it may feel good temporarily, it just perpetuates and often worsens the problem.

You may have heard that strengthening your ‘core’ by doing core exercises can help with low back pain. This is true, but what exactly is your core? Most people think of their core as their abdominal muscles, but this is only looking at one piece of the puzzle.

For correcting posture, one of the most challenging aspects is maintaining healthy posture throughout the day. There are no devices or postural supports that will fix your posture for you. You’ve got to put in the work if you want posture like a red carpet celebrity. I recommend you make three commitments if you want to improve your posture.