The spine is an incredibly sophisticated group of joints, ligaments, nerves and discs and we are still learning about its full complexity and impact on the rest of the body.
Your vertebrae are the main bones that you see on an x-ray; the ones that are stacked on top of each other. The vertebrae are designed to protect your nerves and spinal cord yet still be flexible enough to allow movement of your spine. In between these vertebrae are your discs (Intervertebral discs). Their job is to act as a cushion as they absorb the shock transmitted through your spine when you run or lift heavy objects.
The nerves run down your spine from your brain and branch out at different levels to supply your muscles with the right code to perform the movements you decide to do. Importantly, they also receive information from your joints, ligaments and muscles so your brain can make the right decisions about what information to send your muscles to perform those movements. Just imagine how difficult it would be to kick a football without knowing where your leg is positioned before you start.
Your brain is constantly regulating the information it receives from your nerves, telling it what position your body is in. This means that when you decide to move, you can do it as efficiently as possible.
So overall it’s a constant loop of information between your brain, your nerves, joints and muscles. Your nerves are the software of your body and when they are working well, like a computer, it is a very efficient system that we become to rely on, but when it goes wrong the frustration can be immense! If only we could re-boot our spines!
Construction of the spine
The spine is divided into five different sections:
- Cervical spine - your neck
- Thoracic spine - your thorax which support your ribs
- Lumbar spine - your lower back
- Sacral spine - the lowest vertebrae in your spine, forming your sacrum
- Coccyx (or tail bone) - sits at the very bottom of your spinal column
Each section has a specific task. The lumbar spine supports the weight of your body and so has larger vertebrae and discs to manage that load, but it actually has relatively little movement. Your thoracic spine is designed to be far more mobile, yet still needs to support your ribs and lungs. Your cervical spine needs to be even more mobile, and because it only has the weight of your head to support, its bones are very small.
Just imagine then if your thoracic spine was stiff because your posture was poor for example, and the movement that normally came from there was not available. Your body would compensate and ask another part of our spine to do its job.
Given the different designs of the sections of your spine that we’ve discussed, perhaps you can see that if the lumbar spine (large and relatively stiff) is asked to do the job of the thoracic spine (which allows a much larger amount of movement), you can see that over time this is a recipe for pain.
Its like asking a sprinter to run a marathon, he may give it a good go for a while, but sooner or later he’ll run out of steam. This is one of the main intrinsic causes of back pain, where different parts of your spine don't work properly and another part has to compensate as a result. It will cope for a while, but sooner or later it will fail.
So when you feel that your back ‘goes’ all of a sudden, often it has been coming on for some time, you just haven’t been aware of the many subtle compensations your brain and spine have been making to keep you on the go.
So the old adage of prevention being better than cure is absolutely right! It is worth looking after your back to make sure these compensations do not happen. If you are experiencing back pain, visit our back pain relief pages which include lower back pain exercises from Martin Haines, Biomechanics Coach & UK Leading Physiotherapist, DipRGRT, MCSP SRP MBC MBCA.
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