There are two important causes of non-injury related back pain – Stress and prolonged sitting.
Chronic Stress in all its forms, work stress, emotional stress, poor nutrition, lack of social connection, electromagnetic overload, ensures a steady release of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol into the blood stream. Due to the imbalance between modern living and the primitiveness of our autonomic nervous system a great deal of those secreted stress hormones are not fully utilized.
They are stored in the tissues, especially the muscles and fascia (or connective tissue that surrounds muscles). Here they cause collagen fibers to thicken and tighten resulting in fascial stiffness, inflexibility and pain. They also cause chronic loading of your muscles which are primed and ready for fight or flight but not used. This leads to lactic acid build up and muscle fatigue which leads to pain. Understanding Stress – Part 2 – Massage Therapy Canada
Movement helps flush these pain inducing chemicals from the fascia and muscles. Specifically, the rapid muscle contraction-relaxation cycle elicited by the ballistic nature of kettle bell movements creates a deep-tissue flush of muscle metabolites from the muscles into the blood stream for eventual excretion.
As a chiropractor with strong belief that both the joint and the muscle should be treated together I spend a great deal of time working my clients’ muscles to make them soft, pliable and free of trigger points. This can be incredibly painful. But, my clients who exercise regularly, except in the case of injury, fare better than my sedentary clients. Their muscles release quicker and with less pain than their sedentary counterparts. Kettlebell swing, snatch, and bottoms-up… [J Strength Cond Res. 2012] – PubMed – NCBI
The prolonged immobility of sitting weakens the posterior chain and core- the muscles that are designed to hold us upright- rendering them and the spine ineffective and prone to injury when called on to do the work they are designed to do. The kettle bell swing massively activates the entire posterior chain and abdominal core without the need for heavy load such as in traditional deadlifts.
Further, all weight-training exercises create shearing forces within the joint/s supplied by the muscle being worked. In traditional weight lifting the shear across the lower back intervertebral joints is directed anteriorly. If the postural muscles are not engaged correctly or are weak or hypertonic, they cannot overcome these anterior shear forces and injury to the posterior elements of the spine and spinal cord may result. The shear-force created by the kettlebell swing is posterior.
Whilst this posterior shear may aggravate some tissues in some people, in general it helps reduce the effects of anterior shear induced by prolonged sitting, previous exercise regimes and poor posture, thereby reducing pain. Kettlebell swing, snatch, and bottoms-up… [J Strength Cond Res. 2012] – PubMed – NCBI
Immobility also has direct consequences for the transmission of pain sensation, or nociception. There are four types of mechanoreceptors in the human body. Types 1,2 and 3 are responsible for transmitting touch and pressure messages. These fibers can adapt to stimuli.
This means they will eventually stop transmitting messages about a given stimulus. Type 4 fibers transmit pain messages. These fibers cannot adapt. They continue to fire, sending thousands of messages to the brain although not all of these messages reach the threshold where they are interpreted as pain. Further the transmission of pain messages is cumulative.
In other words, if you have a small problem in your foot that is not necessarily painful on its own, the sub threshold pain messages will add to those in other areas for example the knee and hamstring. Then, that problem in the lower back that wasn’t too bad on its own becomes extremely painful.
Stimulating type 1, 2 and 3 fibers diminishes the firing of type 4 fibers. Yes, movement reduces pain! Immobility increases pain. Obviously some injuries need to be immobilized briefly early on for healing to occur but in an otherwise healthy body, immobility is not an ideal state.
This is one of the reasons why a chiropractic adjustment is so effective- the adjustment causes massive stimulation of type 1, 2 and 3 fibers which then turns the type 4 fibers down. It is also one of the reasons why kettle bells help reduce non-injury, non-subluxation related pain. Instead of moving one or two joints as is the case in traditional weight training, most kettle bells exercises require movement across three or more joints, with several of the exercises requiring whole body movement. HowStuffWorks “Gate Control Theory of Pain”
So, kettlebells can greatly relieve back pain, but before you go swing, snatch and TGU please remember to:
• See your Chiropractor to iron out existing subluxations and improve neural functioning. Do this regularly. There is no movement system, however beneficial, that can replace the specificity and intention of the chiropractic adjustment. Pain is often the last symptom to appear so if you have pain chances are there is an underlying chiropractic subluxation.
• Make sure you, and your trainer, know what you are doing. As beneficial as kettlebells are, if you do it wrong you will get injured. Check your trainer’s certification and do some research into the different styles of kettlebells.
• If you are a beginner get some one-on-one training before you join a class. Due to the dynamic, ballistic nature of kettlebell exercises correct technique is vital.