Do you have persistent, nagging back pain? Not totally debilating, but it’s there, like a dull ache that you can’t ever quite stretch out.

Maybe you’ve tried everything - getting a new mattress, changing your sleeping position, doing more yoga or seeing a chiropractor - but the pain remains, and you’re beginning to feel frustrated and confused. How could you be doing everything right and still be in pain?

I know the references and jokes about getting older and dealing with back pain are everywhere - I know you want better for your body, but you might be starting to think that those jokes are true and this is just how it’s going to be.

Well there is one solution for a situation like this, and it’s frequently completely overlooked, and it’s so simple. I’ll tell you exactly what to do and it’s going to feel like I waved a magic wand for your back.

If you get back pain from time to time or all the time, make sure you listen to this podcast episode.

We’re going to talk about back pain…

But first, let me tell you a story about Sarah.

Sarah is in her mid-40s, a mother of two teenagers, and works a demanding job as a project manager. She's always been fairly active—enjoying weekend hikes with her family, yoga classes twice a week, and the occasional jog around her neighborhood. She’s mindful of her health, eats well, and makes sure to get enough sleep every night. In fact, she recently invested in a top-of-the-line mattress, hoping it would help her wake up feeling refreshed and pain-free.

But despite all her efforts, Sarah started experiencing a persistent, nagging back pain. It wasn’t debilitating, but it was there—every morning when she woke up, every time she bent over to pick something up, standing in the laundry room folding clothes, and sometimes, even during her beloved yoga sessions. She tried everything: adjusting her mattress, tweaking her sleeping positions, even seeing a chiropractor.

Yet, the pain remained, and she couldn’t figure out why.

Sarah began to feel frustrated and confused. How could she be doing everything right and still be in pain? She never had an injury, she didn’t think she had any disc issues, so she wondered if this was just a part of getting older, something she’d have to learn to live with.

But deep down, she hoped there was a solution, something she hadn’t discovered yet that could help her get back to living pain-free.

Have you ever felt like Sarah? Doing everything right, yet still dealing with that relentless back pain? Well, you’re not alone. Today, we're going to uncover the often-overlooked reason behind this kind of back pain and what you can do about it. The answer is probably going to surprise you, especially how SIMPLE it is.

The prevalence of back pain & the many ways it can impact your daily life

Did you realize that about 540 million adults suffer from some form of back pain right now? Most of it is mild, it doesn’t require any surgery yet, but it’s definitely impacting their life.

Back pain, in one form or another, is one of the most common reasons why people make a doctor appointment

Back pain is certainly not life threatening, but it can lead to:

• Inactivity, difficulty sleeping, a source of stress, decreased motivation to care for your body, and slow decline in your overall health
• For a lot of people that have become significantly overweight, have heart conditions and metabolic conditions that are life threatening, it can be traced back to a back pain incident
  • When I think about everyone I know that is in very poor health, back pain is somehow in the picture.

So my question for you is this: What if we solved the back pain, or at least got it to reduce significantly, how would that impact the rest of your health?

• If I were to wave a magic wand right now and your back pain instantly vanished, how would that impact your life?

I bet it would impact your life a whole lot more than you realize.

Ok, let’s start waving those magic wands…

Do you know what the most commonly overlooked cause of your back pain is? (It’s so simple!) - Having weak glutes.

What do your glutes do?

• They help you stand up from a chair, sit down, climb stairs, get down on the floor, walk, run, or even just stand up straight.
• They’re the largest muscle group on your body, and for good reason - you need them for so many everyday functions
• Your glutes are your BIG MOVERS - If we use a car as an analogy, they’re the driveshaft, the axle, the wheels and the tires of your body (Continuing that analogy, your spine is the frame of the car.)

When your glutes are weak, your low back has to do everything.

• It has to pull you up from a sitting position, it has to help you bend over, it has to hold you up straight when you’re standing, it has to arch backwards with every step you take.
• God did not design your spine and the muscles surrounding it to be your big movers. Those muscles - your core - are stabilizers, bracers. Like the frame of a car. But your body is going to figure out how to move somehow, and if your glutes are weak, it will do it in an unbalanced way. The frame of the car will start to bend.

How can you tell if your glutes are weak, if that’s one of the reasons for your back pain?

Let’s play detective and gather some clues here about your body:

First, do you sit a lot?

• If you sit everyday for extended periods of time, most likely your glutes are weak.

Second, what are some of your experiences throughout the day?

• When you stand still for 10 minutes or more (like at the kitchen sink), do you begin to get a dull aching pain at your low back?
• Do you also have knee pain? Or tight hip flexors? Both of these things are linked to weak glutes, so these are some other clues
• When you go for a walk, can you tell that your hips shift side to side or drop?
• Do you experience something called “Dead Butt Syndrome” or Gluteal Amnesia (this is the numb feeling in your buttocks when you’ve been sitting too long, or in more severe cases it can lead to severe difficulty in getting up from the floor)

Third, let’s confirm all this with a couple easy tests:

• Bridge - do your hamstrings really cramp?
• Single leg bridge - does your hip drop?
• Single leg stance - When you stand up and lift one leg up off the floor, does your weight shift dramatically to the side or does your hip drop?

If you mentally said yes to any of these things, most likely your glutes are weak and could be the reason why your back hurts.

Solutions:

1) Stop sitting so much. Biggest cause of glute weakness is too much sitting - get up frequently throughout the day (standing work desk)

• But here’s what I want you to think about when standing up from your chair -
  • Rather than leaning forward and unfolding your body like a slinky to stand up, maybe only pushing with your arms, think about planting your feet firmly and pushing up through your thighs and bum

2) When you’re standing and you start to experience some back pain, just squeeze and flex your glutes

I have a standing desk and I do this the instant I can feel my back ache. I also do this while folding laundry or when doing the dishes. Sometimes, if I’m down in a crouched position like gardening or cleaning a bathtub, and I stand up, my back and feel super achy, and squeezing my glutes takes that pain away.

• This is not “butt clenching” - where you go throughout the day with your buns tucked under and you’re constantly clenching
• Periodic flexing of your glute muscles

3) Follow a good glute strengthening program - this is probably the most important and will give you the longest lasting relief.

When your low back hurts, it’s normal to think you need to strengthen your back muscles, but really it’s the glutes that need to be stronger, and hopefully now you can see why.

• Lots of ways to strengthen your glutes, but these types of exercises are the most important for building true glute strength:
  • Bridging
  • Hip Hinging from a standing position
  • Clamshell or fire hydrant moves for your side glutes

How Can You Take Action?

What can you do to start making your low back feel better?

Start strengthening those glutes! And I’ve made it really easy for you with my free 5-Day Glute Builder program. For so many months, when women would ask me what to do for their low back pain, I found myself constantly saying “Let’s get your glutes stronger”, and I kept having to tell them individual exercises to try and then try to explain how to do them. And I said forget it, let me just put it all into one concise program for you.

You can get started with it today for free at www.5DayGlutes.com

More Resources & Links

FREE 5-Day Glute Builder program - get started today!

Need a holistic approach to long-term back pain relief? Try the 30-day Back & Hip Fix program!

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