This week’s Know A Procedure focuses on one of the most common complaints: back pain. With summer officially underway, swimming and pool therapy exercises can be a fun and effective way to help your back and stay cool in the hot weather.
Swimming is a great form of low impact aerobic conditioning because it is easy on the back and spine. When swimming, there is practically no impact on the spinal structures unlike running or other forms of exercise. The water helps support your body and relieve the stress on all joints.
Spine-health describes some great pooltherapy exercise techniques that you can learn to do while you’re soaking up the sun this summer. These exercises include knee-to-chest, leg raise, wall-facing leg strength, pool walking and quadruped activity.
Spine-health explains that active water therapy exercises for back pain should be tailored to the individual and their specific needs because they are all diverse. Exercises can range from simple routines in a shallow pool or a home pool in your backyard to faster pace exercises using underwater treadmills and other high-tech equipment.
If you have a hot tub, you can complement your pool therapy workout, which can be similar to a spa treatment involving relaxing your body in warm, agitate water. Spine-health explains that the warm moving water relaxes muscles, improves muscle blood blow and helps increase your circulation. This is recommended to do before pooltherapy or land-based exercises to make your body more flexible and less sore.
If you have reoccurring back pain due to problems with the spine, click here to connect with one of our non-surgical pain management doctors or an orthopedic spine surgeon!
To read more on pooltherapy from Spine-health, click here
