Is walking good for back pain?
Recently, I read an article about walking and back pain: https://www.fitandwell.com/features/is-walking-good-for-lower-back-pain
Is walking good for back pain? Initially, when people come to the clinic I do the following:
History of their condition and health
Assessment including posture, range of motion, orthopedic, and neurologic tests which may include x-rays
Treatment to relieve pain
As the patient's pain starts to diminish, then I talk about specific activities to help their condition including walking. Walking is easy to do, and starting small with 5 minutes a day is good.
Then, working up to longer durations and more frequency can be beneficial. Depending on the person, 2 walks a day for 15 minutes each may be best. Or the person may want to do 1 walk for 30 minutes.
In this article in American Family Physician, they recommend 5 walks a week for 30 minutes each. To read the article, click here: https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2015/0801/p230.html
Later, I may even recommend some interval training. Like 60 seconds of walking with 10 seconds of higher intensity movement like jogging.
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