Mastering Lower Back Pain

In this video I explain a concept that is key to modifying most biological tissues: progressive loading. It’s about finding the right amount of stress your tissues can tolerate, then gradually building capacity without pushing too far too fast.

Some tissues, say tendons suffering from a tendinopathy, are in a degenerated state. So the base amount of pressure they can tolerate per day without pain is much lower than a healthy tendon. To modify it back to strength we need to find the level of tolerance of that tendon (eg. doing a simple movement against gravity) and gently strengthen it without increasing pain the next day. Stimulating the body to modify it’s structure to progressively be able to support more and more weight or stress per day. Over time the exercises need to become more intense while always matching the tendons capacity to absorb it safely. Exercises can still create more pain for a few hours after the exercise but never more the next day. Or the dose was too high and I need to adjust!

As a physio I apply this concept to building many therapies. This same framework applies to most tissue structures in the human body.