Dear Athlete,
The chances of you suffering back injury are far greater than you may think. Nine out of ten adults in the western world suffer back pain at some point in their lives. Only colds and flu beat low back problems when it comes to the most common reasons for visiting a doctor or taking time off work.
So let’s suppose you go down with a really bad back tomorrow? What would you do? Visit your doctor?
It happens to thousands of people every day. For back pain, most doctors will advise you to:
- Stop all training and exercise
- Stop all sports
- Take pain killers
- Rest
A physiotherapist or good chiropractor can help, but the cost is high and ongoing. Treatment can take months: and there’s the problem.
As all athletes know, in just a few days you’ll have lost that hard-won muscle tone. Agility soon becomes a thing of the past. Performances drop like a stone. Later, when and if the pain goes, it will take months of hard and lonely work to get your full strength back.
And, worse of all, that ‘bad back’ will return again and again.
What lies behind the back pain epidemic?
That scenario is being repeated everywhere. There’s a world-wide epidemic of back pain – and all because of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles: our backs are just not conditioned for all the sitting we do.
With so much at stake, why are so few people prepared for trouble? Why isn’t everyone building a tough, flexible mid-section? Why are the causes of back injury so often ignored or misunderstood?
The answers to the ‘puzzle of back pain’ are contained in my new book, Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief. The book explains why so many people, even top athletes, train with unprotected, vulnerable spines. And more to the point, the book shows you what do to protect and treat your back.
Whether or not you have ever suffered back pain, read on. You are about to learn something vital to your fitness and your sporting lifestyle.
Mark Alexander
Author, Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief
Mark Alexander oversees and lectures on the postgraduate sports physiotherapy Masters programme at La Trobe University, Melbourne. From 2007 to 2008, he worked as sports physiotherapist to the gold-medal Australian Olympic triathlon team.
Why a bad back should be no surprise
A bad back comes to almost all people. It’s always inconvenient, always unexpected and always comes with distracting pain that puts a hold on your training activity.
How would that back pain spoil your lifestyle? What would the long-term effect be?
In most cases, once you sustain back injury, the damaged muscle group is unlikely to fully recover. That pain will return again and again.
No matter how you feel today, taking no action is not an option. It’s folly to wait until you are injured to try and fix things: the time to act is now.
My new book, Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief gives a three-step solution. My own observation confirms it’s the most comprehensive book on backs available today. As such it belongs on every athlete’s bookshelf. In it you’ll learn how to:
- Build a strong, supple back and mid-section to achieve supreme fitness and physical performance
- Prevent back injury by understanding the causes
- Self-treat back injury safely, quickly and easily
How to de-fuse that ticking bomb on your back
Make no mistake about the facts: on average we sit for more than 12 hour a day! That is 8-9 hours of sitting at work, then 3-4 hours at home in front of the television, reading, driving and travelling etc.
Your back needs to be in peak condition to withstand all that sitting. Unfortunately, most of us have unconditioned, unsupported, vulnerable spines – a ticking bomb waiting to explode with pain.
The problem we must face is that taking part in sport or exercise doesn’t counteract the 8-12 hours of daily sitting. In fact sport, like many other activities, can take things to the danger level.
That’s why, although we blame the cause of back pain on ‘lifting’, ‘bending’ or ‘slipping’ etc., it’s really the result of over-testing a severely weakened set of muscles – the slightest ‘wrong’ movement can cause incapacitating pain. It can happen when we lift a suitcase out of a car, pull an electric plug from a socket, slip on a spill or open a garage door.
As many will testify, the most everyday movement can put a person out of action for weeks. But that pain is a warning, a warning signal that anti-inflammatory tablets will simply disguise. For most people, an unprepared back is a long-term injury waiting to happen.
Reap the benefits of a tough, flexible back in just minutes a day
A strong, supple back improves leverage, stability and endurance. It’s the foundation for most athletic movement and without it, maximal performances cannot be achieved.
But the astonishing thing I learned during many years of helping injured athletes is that, although the advantages of having a flexible, reliable back are undisputed, few athletes include the necessary exercises in their schedule, even though those exercises take very little time or effort to complete.
As I explain below, widespread apathy means by neglecting a vital group of muscles many athletes and sportspeople have overlooked some major personal performance enhancers.
Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief empowers you, the reader, to take responsibility for your own back and maintain your spine in great shape.
Micro-trauma: the key to understanding back pain
The causes of back pain often lie in some part of your life that is away from your activity. Or they may be intimately bound up in the way you undertake your sport. Either way, the book will greatly improve your chances of pinpointing the hidden source of problems and prevent injury and recurrence.
Here are some typical comments from the hundreds of patients who have arrived at my clinic in severe pain seeking physiotherapy:
- “I bent over to get my golf ball out of the hole and bam! It just went and I couldn’t stand up”
- “I felt this unbelievable pain in my back and all the way down my right leg when I was squatting in the gym”
- “Every time I play tennis, my back gets stiffer and stiffer afterwards”
- “I love to run but I am finding the more I run, the more aching I am getting in my lower back, especially up hills.”
- “I am not sure if my bike set up is correct for my body size as after every ride now my back kills to the point where I think I need to see someone.”
But that movement wasn’t what injured your back!
When a simple, normal, innocuous movement suddenly gives you acute back or neck pain, you can be sure of one thing: the movement isn’t to blame. It wasn’t what injured your back. The underlying cause will more likely have been your poor bending technique over the years, coupled with too much prolonged sitting. Both things will have inflicted repeated micro-trauma, eventually producing a severe strain.
Self-help exercises to strengthen and protect your back
The workouts and self-help exercises in Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief target specific muscle groups and ‘problem areas’. Some take very little effort or space to complete: there are exercises to do while sitting at a desk, lying on the floor watching TV or standing at the bathroom sink in the morning and evening. Many of the exercises are quick and discreet – no-one can see you doing them!
The simple movements take up very little time – it’s the regularity that makes them effective. Each is based on treatments for real people with common back problems, based on years of experience.
Why back pain is ALWAYS personal
I wrote Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief because I wanted to cut through the morass of hand-me-down tips, bad science, baseless ‘facts’ and misconceptions that surround the treatment and prevention of back pain. The aim of this report is to offer widely applicable, sound and effective advice in the full knowledge that everyone’s back pain comes attached to their specific and unique circumstances.
There are thousands of pages of advice on bad backs on the Internet, but each promotes a particular approach: heat wraps, massage, surgery, personal physiotherapy, gym-based exercise, pilates, yoga, various drugs etc.
But the fact is there is no such thing as a simple one-size-fits-all solution. What’s needed is an all-purpose independent, science-based workbook on the various treatments available. That is what we are offering today.
Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief: content
There is not room enough to list all the content here, but we have given a summary below of some of the major chapters.
Back exercises for sportspeople: you will find the key underlying back conditioning drills and stretches, as well as useful general instruction on stretching etc. designed more to meet the needs of active people pursuing specific types of sports.
Exercises for immediate pain relief: diagrams and instruction for treating pain: knees to chest, rocking, back rotation stretching etc
How the back works: helps you understand the main structures relating to the spine, what they are for and how they commonly get injured. Explains anatomical technicalities mentioned in other chapters.
Every day back care: practical tips, strategies and self-help advice on how to look after your stiff, sore or achy back. How to correct your posture and establish long-term care and conditioning for your back; daily activities that aggravate your back without you realising it; protective exercises relevant to your sport to prevent future episodes of back pain.
Protecting and conditioning your back: The two types of exercise for good back care:
- Stretching for flexibility: loosens up stiff structures to increase the flexibility of your back, keeping the back mobile and reducing tension and stiffness. Whenever your back is feeling stiff, achy or sore, do these exercises preferable twice a day.
- Preventive back strengthening: once your back pain has settled you can move on to preventive strengthening work, developing adequate strength in the major muscles of the back to support the daily demands and stresses you place on it.
How to handle back pain: what to do with back or neck pain. How to decide whether your pain needs urgent attention; how to handle the initial pain; what kinds of professionals you might consult to advise and help you get back to full fitness; and what kind of scan, if any, might be appropriate.
Functional, sports-specific exercises: having adequate conditioning for everyday purposes is not the same as developing sports-related strength, so once you have baseline back fitness, boost it with training that is specific to your sport and occupation. This section shows exercises for the main different types of sport that require good back protection.
How to avoid back pain: how to maintain a neutral spine whenever you bend; develop good flexibility in your hamstrings so you can bend easily from your hips rather than your lower back; follow good lifting technique
Back pain busters at home: achieve pain relief at home with these simple strategies to relieve the strain on your back, reduce pain, settle muscle spasm, improve mobility in your spine and reduce inflammation
Self-massage and manipulation: until relatively recently there were no self-treatment devices for back pain. I have therefore designed my own, that allows you to massage and relieve your back pain in the comfort of your own home, maintaining flexibility as well as massaging and mobilising the tight muscles and stiff joints that develop from poor posture and sports activities.
Analysing the causes of back injury: none of us is precisely average, because no two individuals are ever the same. But there are many conditions, circumstances and points in life that may cause your back to be vulnerable to injury. This chapter provides insight into some of the main circumstances that should highlight extra cautions for you.
A note from the publisher:
Four reasons why this new book on backs is unique
As the world’s leading online publisher for sports training advice, Sports Injury Bulletin and its sister website Peak Performance publish a huge range of books on almost every relevant aspect of fitness, injury prevention, injury treatment and performance enhancement.
Over the years we have come to realise that these apparently diverse aspects of athleticism are closely linked: unless you pay proper attention to all four areas, performances will inevitably decline.
For these reasons, we jumped at the chance to publish Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief and rush it into early print before it escaped to another publisher:
- Until now, we have not seen the kind of comprehensive, holistic approach needed to prevent and treat the often hidden causes of back injury
- Contrary to widely accepted opinion, most cases of back pain will respond to treatment very quickly with expert guidance
- There is a good reason why ‘bad backs’ are so common: re-injury. Injuries return again and again to devastating effect because the muscle groups responsible are not toughened up to do their proper job. The exercises in this new book banish pain for good by identifying and strengthening the responsible muscle groups
- Most ‘remedies’ we see are ‘treatment-specific’: they focus on one particular method. But contrary to the hundreds of ‘single solutions’ offered on the Internet, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for curing or preventing back pain, but rather many options. These options are contained in this new book.
Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief is quite simply the most practical book on back strength and injury relief we have seen - and we would like you to try it out today before the official publication date.
There is a full money-back guarantee.
Why every athlete needs this new book on backs
Like most publishers, we receive many manuscripts to consider for publication. But unlike other publishers, we read every one we receive in the hope of discovering the rare prize -- something completely new and effective we can pass on to our members. This is such a book.
Great books on this subject are rare. Few authors have even tried to link cause, effect, treatment and improved fitness. No other book we have seen shows how toughening up your mid-section muscles will not only prevent and treat back pain but also improve all kinds of athletic performances by a significant margin.
Why we are backing this author
Mark Alexander is one of the world’s top sports physiotherapists and a long-term senior consultant advisor to Sports Injury Bulletin.
Mark is the coordinator of the Master of sports physiotherapy degree at Latrobe University in Melbourne Australia and sports physiotherapist to the 2008 Olympic Australian triathlon team. He has worked with the Riverdance Irish dance troupe, London Broncos Rugby League team and the Wasps Rugby Union team in the United Kingdom.
His book Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief has taken four years to complete. It contains simple yet effective chronic back pain treatments, remedies and exercises that really work. The result is a handbook for self-education and choices for action: you will be able to select what most closely suits your own circumstances and needs.
Order your trial pre-publication copy today!
We consider Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief to be the most comprehensive, exhaustive and useful work on backs available today.
Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief pulls together the latest knowledge from scientific research, along with the insights and experience the author has gained over 15 years of clinical work as a sports physiotherapist.
As a member of the Sports Injury Bulletin or the Peak Performance website you can order your copy today at the special launch day price of $39.97 (£24.63).
To place your trial order, complete with money-back guarantee, click on any of the links in this message.
Your money-back guarantee
Both Mark and everyone here at Sports Performance want you to be 100% convinced that you can make a life-changing difference to your health and fitness with this book. And we don't want a penny off you unless you are completely happy.
So, if for any reason whatsoever, you feel Beating Back Pain: A Sports Physiotherapist’s Guide to Relief isn't right for you, simply send it back within 30 days for a full, unconditional refund - no hard feelings.
But I think once you discover the exercises and information Mark's packed inside this book you'll be clinging onto it with both hands.
To order your copy at the special launch day price of $39.97 (£24.63), simply go to our secure site, which is administered and guaranteed by Worldpay, and enter your details.
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