When’s the last time you felt any pain, stiffness or discomfort in your upper or lower back or your neck?

Or when’s the last time you heard someone complaining about it?

It’s quite common these days, isn’t it..

I’m walking down the street on my way to gym today..

And what I see when I pass by the first block of offices..

Is at least every other person leaning in to kiss their screen.

So, obviously not wanting to be just another reminder of sitting properly..

I thought I’d touch on the whole topic of back and neck pain in more depth and give you something to think about.

It All Starts Very Innocently

No one’s obviously born with any back or neck pains.

At least not the ones this article is about.

You won’t hear kids complaining about such things much.

And you won’t have any idea it’s out there waiting for you until you get it.

So then one day you want to pick something up from the floor and snap, you hurt your lower back.

Or perhaps you wake up in the morning and your upper back or neck hurts.

And you have no idea why.

Or perhaps you do.. and think it must be the sleep…

It must be the heavy table you were lifting…

But in most cases it’s not..

And it’s been brewing for a long time..

Why Do You Feel Back And Neck Pain?

Sitting on a chair for a third of your life could be one reason…

Doing no resistance training and stretching to compensate for your sedentary lifestyle is another one..

And then bad habits, imbalanced sport movement, lack of awareness etc..

Over time, your body simply adapts to your default position during the day.

So if you’re sitting down, your hamstrings and hip flexors get tight.

If you don’t exercise on top of that, your core and glutes muscle get weak.

If you stare into the screen all the time and type into your keyboard, your upper traps and chest get tight, your rhomboids and lower traps get weak, and your shoulders roll forward..

If you’re a runner or a cyclist, your quads can get dominant and your glutes underpowered.

And what all of these do…

Is they little by little put your muscle out of balance..

To the point that it influences your physiology…

Permanently…

And when you one day bend over and you’re meant to use certain muscles for the movement, you end up not using them because they’re out of balance..

And so you start compensating with other muscles.

And that’s when you expose yourself to the risk of back pain and neck pain.

So what I need you to understand is that in most cases these pains don’t evolve overnight and you need to stay in check to avoid them.

Get Active And Balanced Again

The first thing you must do to avoid these pains is to simply stay physically active.

A well-balanced gym routine or even a bodyweight routine is a must.

Then the second thing is to include some compensation exercises in your routine.

Have a posture assessment done on yourself to find out which muscle need stretching and which muscle need strengthening and work on it, consistently.

I know it doesn’t sound lucrative, but neither does 6 weeks not being able to move properly because of you pulling something in your back.

Invest that time in yourself.

Not doing anything will obviously only make things worse for you.

But take the time to fix your muscle imbalances and your back and neck pains could be gone forever.