The causes of low back pain can be many, including overuse, muscle strain, and injury to the muscles, ligaments, and discs that support your spine. Over time, these can lead to muscle imbalances in your back making it prone to injury or re-injury.
Low back pain causes tend to add on to each other. For example, after straining your back or lower back muscles, you are likely to walk or move in slightly different ways to avoid pain. This, in turn, can cause you to injure or strain other muscles that are not used to moving that way, compounding the problem.
What causes low back pain:
Injury or overuse of muscles, ligaments and facet joints through daily activity, sports, or work that involved hard labor.
Long hours of sitting in a sedentary position so you’re constantly in a fixed, hunched-over posture. This places a tremendous strain on your entire back structure and can lead to low back pain over time.
Stress and inflammation in joints close to spinal nerves because of repetitive or sustained activity.
Nerve root compression in your spinal canal is one of the major causes of low back pain, caused by:
A herniated disc – spinal discs may become injured due to heavy machine use, sports, lifting heavy weights improperly, or a sudden strain on your lower back.
Osteoarthritis – joint degeneration, which typically develops with age. Osteoarthritis in the hips can cause you to limp or even change the way you walk, which can eventually lead to back pain.
Spinal stenosis – narrowing of the spinal canal because of bone spurs formed as a result of arthritis or aging, leading to irritation and causing low back pain.
Fractured vertebrae – caused by an auto or bicycle accident, a direct blow to the spine, or spinal compression caused by falling onto the back or head.
Treatments for low back pain usually fail because they focus on the pain, which is typically a symptom of a larger problem. Failure to deal with the underlying cause in time leads to more severe problems and having to work harder and longer to get your back to normal function and health again.
Low back pain causes include muscle imbalances which typically develop when you have overdeveloped, tight muscles in one part of your body while opposing muscles become weak and stretched out of their normal position. As your muscles become imbalanced, your body is displaced out of proper alignment. This places uneven stress and causes wear and tear on your muscles, ligaments, joints, and spine.
