In your body you have a spine consisting of 7 cervical vertebrae (neck), 12 thoracic vertebrae (trunk), 5 lumber vertebrae (low back), 5 sacral vertebrae (back side of pelvis), and 4 coccyx bones at the base of the spine. From your neck down to L5-S1 you have discs at each level that act as a cushion to the spine and back allowing for more motion. Discs are made up of elastic fibrous like materials that in a healthy back allow you to bend, twist right and left, side bend, and bend backwards! Over time, one can develop tears in the cartilage like rings within the disk that can lead to the middle jelly (nucleus pulpous) to protrude or bulge through the weak area of the disk. I could get into more fancy names and so on, but I will not bore you today.
Understand that even at rest gravity is constantly having an impact (pressure or compression) on your spine. The posterior (backwards) stress on a disc can be up to 5x normal just with sitting for prolonged periods of time. Ligaments that support you can only do so much! The rest needs to be done by your bony structure and your muscles! The more your muscles can not support the structure (i.e. vertabrae, discs etc.) the more likely one is to end up with muscle realted pain or if really unlucky disc related pain. When pain is disc related one can have a tear, bulge, protrusion, inflammation or herniation. All of these are ultimately responsible for loss of hydration and thickness of a disc. Some therapist subscribe to a theory called "Disc in Evolution". This simply means most people develop injuries or changes to the disc overtime. This then leads up to an event that utimately causes pain. (Specifics of which are beyond this article) .
After acute pain is under control and you have approval from your physician, therapist, or Chiropractor, you can proceed with appropriate exercise. This can at the very least help slow down and manage further aggressive pain. Yes, getting more fit and doing appropriate exercise can make a difference. As we age, some progression of degeneration and a lessening disc thickness is normal. However, due to occupation, injury or deconditioning and being overweight many will end up with more degenerative disc (thinner disc)problems than normal healthly adults. View the picture representation below of the intravertebral disc. For more questions you can contact me at brian@optimalhealthperformance.com or athttp://www.optimalhealthperformance.com/ .
Picture taken from " Management of Common Musculoskeletal Disorders; Hertling & Kessler 1990
