Our muscles are what supports our spine and allow movement to occur when we contract them. When we activate certain muscles other muscles must release in unison. Muscular pain occurs when there is lack of communication between the muscles that are supposed to work together.
Causes of Low Back Pain
I am excluding here structural problems such as disc protrusions and severe scoliosis and focusing on muscular imbalances. Generally I find that low back pain is associated with weakness (corresponds with under energy) or under facilitation in the abdominal muscles particularly transverse abdominus and the psoas muscles and over facilitation of the quadratus lumborum and the erector spinae muscles. Over facilitation (corresponds with over energy) of both the psoas and quadratus lumborum will also cause pain in the lumbar region.
The psoas muscle originates on each of the lumbar vertebrae (L1 – L5) and on T12 and inserts on the lesser trochanter of the femur (inside the upper thigh). The quadratus lumborum originates on the posterior lip of the iliac crest (posterior aspect of the hip bone) and inserts on the 12th rib and lumbar vertebras 1 – 4. These two muscles provide the major support and stability for the lumbar spine. There are other muscles supporting the spine and these can be involved in low back pain. They are the longitudinal muscles that extend up the spine known collectively as erector spinae muscles and those small muscles that give immediate stability and support to adjacent vertebrae namely; interspinalis, intertranversarii, multifidis, and rotatores.
The Muscle Meridian Matrix
What causes these imbalances? To understand the answer to that question we need to look at the association between the muscles and the acupuncture meridians.
When the stress is chronic and ongoing and we are over-efforting in trying to continually do better, constantly pressing our will into action this will lead to exhaustion and under energy in the kidney meridian and a corresponding under facilitation (weakness) of the psoas muscle. The result is lack of low back support.
Bladder meridian being the yang aspect of the water element is about the control of our external environment. This meridian is intimately connected with our survival. When we feel that events in our world are out of our control then energy will go to this meridian to help us cope. This can translate into over facilitation of the associated back muscles. You can see how worry, anxiety and fear about events that are shaping our lives or anticipating things going wrong can translate into under or over facilitation of the associated low back muscles.
Large intestine meridian is the yang (doing or action) aspect of the metal element and is about our sense of self worth and also about holding onto old perceptions of self and others; not letting go of the past. If we have been given the message that we are pretty useless or our performance is never quite good enough then this can lead to over energy in this
meridian as we effort to perform and impress others to demonstrate our worth. Making mistakes will not be allowed and perfection will be high on the have to have list. If this translates into over facilitation of the quadratus lumborum and weakness of the psoas (worry, anxiety and fear) you have a recipe for low back pain. Add to that the need to control everything (Bladder meridian) and the pain just got a whole lot worse.
The small intestine meridian is paired in the fire element with the heart meridian. The heart meridian is essentially about our spirit as a person and the small intestine meridian is the yang aspect of our spirit. Unsurprisingly then it is about expressing that spirit. The more we feel constrained to express who we are out of fear or ridicule or worse the weaker in general become the abdominal muscles. Sometimes weakness is one sided as it can be and often is with any of the muscles in the table above. This can lead to hip pain, sacral pain, one leg shorter then the other as well as low
back pain.
The Solution
To understand your low back pain read the article on why kinesiology and reflect on your survival patterns as these are what you will be using to cope with everyday stress. Do not blame others for these patterns but understand how they arose and thereby give yourself choice about how you will respond to stress in the future. Understand which areas of your life are out of balance by reference to the Venn diagram. Pain can often resolve itself if we are aware of our responses to stressors in our world and make effort to change our perception of self. Kinesiology will help you identify your survival patterns and release the pain state. The extent to which your pain persists or further treatment
is required will be a measure of how you have altered your perception of your environment and the responses to the everyday happenings in your world.