Running with Back Pain - 5 Top Tips to combat it

London Marathon

At some time last year, I momentarily had a lapse of sanity and agreed to run the London Marathon with a friend of mine who’d run it 3 times. We had been running together for a few weeks, and she assured me it would be fine, and I’d find it a life-affirming experience, and that she would be with me all the way. Unfortunately, she broke her foot, and after it healed 12 weeks later, she broke the other one. So sadly she had to pull out, leaving me all alone to suffer the cold wet mornings and rainy nights.

The problem with running

Now as a Chiropractor, running is always one of those sports that we are wary of our patients doing when they are suffering with back pain. The reason for this is that it’s a high impact sport, which means that there is a great deal of shock-force that travels through the spine.

Each time your heel strikes the ground while running, the force of the heel striking the ground can be as much as 2-3 times your own body weight. 

So what should you do?

With all that in mind, and remembering that your lower back is your weight bearing region, and so is the part of the spine under the most stress when running, Here are my top 5 tips for running safely with back pain…

1. Get some decent trainers

Make sure you have a good pair of trainers to support your feet and then make sure you replace them at the right time. Some people say you should replace them at around 300 miles, others can last as long as 600 miles. It really depends on how you run, your technique, your weight and even the mechanics of your feet. It is better to rely on how much wear there is in the tread, or whether or not the sides of the soles are wrinkling. Once you start getting niggles in your knees, hips or ankles, it’s probably because your trainers are way past their use-by-date.

2. Do other exercises, namely, resistance based exercises

Train your core! This I cannot emphasise enough. Many people will only run for fitness. By this I mean they don’t do anything else such as swimming, or core exercises, or cycling. It’s important that the body has various stimuli to keep your muscles working in many different ways. You need to train strength, stamina, flexibility, and balance to name a few. Doing some focused core exercises (and I don’t just mean a static plank – old news!), will help challenge the body in ways that running does not. Ultimately the benefit is improved running; speed, distance and form will all improve.

3. Don’t run on the pain

Do not run if you have pain in your back or joints. Some muscle pain is ok, so long as it doesn’t make you walk like John Wayne. But do not go out with inflammation-type aches in your knees. Especially, if the pain is sharp. Wait for it to settle down and then don’t run as hard as you did the last time. Drop it down in distance and in pace, until the pain has definitely gone. If you go out and the pain returns stop and go home, you’re not ready yet. Now I know some runners will say “But I feel great when I run, my back pain doesn’t hurt”, but often the damage is not felt at the time (as the core is engaged), but afterwards, when the inflammatory reaction kicks in, so just give it a day off.

4. Brace your abs

Tighten your tummy. I will not write about how you should run, as there are countless articles and YouTube videos online, which can help and offer great advice. However, one important thing to remember is to engage your core muscles. By bracing your abdominal muscles, your lower back will be stabilised, and there will be a reduction in the amount of wasted energy in your form, and therefore less chance of injury. Think of the body like a tall building, with thousands of screws and bolts. Imagine if all the screws were loosened, the building would give way somewhere. Keep it tight!

5. Don’t forget the pre and post run stuff

Finally, warm up, cool down and stretch. Always start your run with a 5-minute warm up – for example, brisk walking, and then accelerate into a slow jog. Try getting your knees up high, doing heel kicks and sidestepping. These are some great ways to warm up and to mobilise your joints. Then after you’ve done your main session run, cool down, by reducing the speed gradually, over the course of 5 minutes to a slow jog and then a walk. This prevents blood pooling, nausea and dizziness. Then perform some static stretching for the legs – hamstrings, quads, calves (both Gastrocnemius and Soleus), as well as the glutes, piriformis and lower back muscles.