Doctors and physical therapists have long incorporated aerobic exercise into treatment programs for lower-back pain. Movement can simultaneously ease lower-back pain and also strengthen the muscles that support your back. Still, many people with back pain can be hesitant to exercise.
A new study, published in The Lancet , offers more evidence on the power of movement. The study found that a regular walking routine can be very effective for preventing the recurrence of back pain. The study focused on adults with a history of low-back pain; those who walked regularly went nearly twice as long without their back pain coming back compared with the control group.
The findings are in line with a large body of existing research that has established an association between physical activity and better outcomes for back pain. A 2019 systematic review found that physical activity lowered the prevalence of back pain. And a 2017 study found that yoga worked as well as physical therapy for relieving back pain.
Walking can help strengthen the muscle groups that help stabilise the spine, primarily your core muscles. Credit: Getty Images The new study builds on this research by following patients outside a tightly controlled clinical setting. Mark Hancock, a professor of physiotherapy at Macquarie University and a senior author of the study, sought to evaluate the effectiveness of a less-expensive intervention that could be easier for many people to access than in-clinic treatment.
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