In our previous blog, we covered how your student’s backpack can directly lead to him or her experiencing lower back pain. If you’re following the advice in that blog and your child is still having issues, it may be due to something else they’re doing during their day—practicing poor posture.
For today’s blog, Core Physical Therapy is going to cover a few things your child may be doing that is negatively affecting their posture, and how to correct it:
- Slouching
We’re all familiar with the image of the surly, slumped-over teenager. If you’ve been on them about their posture, you aren’t wrong! Sitting slumped over can increase the pressure going to the lower back by as much as 100 percent. That becomes worse when standing—up to 125 percent!A way to remedy this is to encourage your teen to pay attention to where their hands are. If they’re in line with their hips, that’s a good indication that they’re practicing good posture.| - Weight lifting.
If your child has an athletic bent, they might find themselves in the gym more often than not. For those who are lifting weights, it’s important that they pay close attention to what’s going on with their spine. When standing naturally, their lower back and neck curve inwards while their mid back and area between the shoulder blades curve outwards.As long as they’re maintaining this inward curved position, they should distribute less stress to the lower back. If they’re slouching while lifting, though, that stress can increase much more than sitting or standing—as much as 250 percent! - Spinal Conditions.
There are a number of different underlying medical conditions that could cause back pain that no amount of good posture will remedy. Scoliosis, for example, is an unnatural curvature of the spine that shows up in childhood. There are also a number of things that can go wrong with the discs, or cartilaginous joints, that sit between the spinal bones. If your child is diagnosed with one of these, our Spine Pain program can help them feel better again.
If back pain is a problem for you or a family member, don’t hesitate to make an appointment with Core Physical Therapy! In the state of Iowa, most insurance companies don’t require that you have a doctor’s note to see a physical therapist, so feel free to reach out to us today!