Each year millions of people struggle with lower back pain. Unfortunately, many of them suffer unnecessarily.

The surprising reason for this is that most of the treatments that patients receive only address the symptoms of back pain. And while treating the symptoms can provide some pain relief, it is often only temporary. If you want to get lasting relief, you have to look deeper than just the symptoms or even the condition.

The Two Words that are Keeping You in Pain

If you suffer from lower back pain, or any other physical condition or injury for that matter, I am willing to bet that you have never heard these two words from the mouth of your doctor, physical therapist or other health care provider.

So what are these two mysterious words? Muscle Imbalances.

See, what most people don’t realize is that lower back pain is typically a process, meaning it develops over time. While people tend to attach it to an incident like shoveling snow, sneezing or picking up a box, the fact is the problem has been there for months or years but you are just now aware because there’s now pain.

Here’s what happens…

Over time, various muscle groups in our body become out of balance. One muscle gets stronger while the opposing muscle gets weaker. This imbalance pulls our bones, joints and spine out of alignment. These muscle imbalances force our body to function in a dysfunctional way and this places excessive, uneven and unnecessary strain and wear and tear on our muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, cartilage and spinal discs.

While we can function with the imbalances, it usually isn’t long before the body breaks down. A good analogy is to think about your car. What happens when your steering is out of alignment? Your car pulls to one side and the tires wear down unevenly. If you don’t deal with the underlying problem, eventually you’ll have a blow out. Well the same is true for your body.

The real key to eliminating lower back pain (or any other ache, pain or injury) is to start at the beginning and that means you need to identify and address the underlying cause, which is almost always muscle imbalances.  You can do this by consulting with a fitness trainer or other health care professional who can then lead you through guided exercises to remedy your muscle imbalances.

So if you are dealing with lower back pain, or any other condition, I suggest you make identifying your muscle imbalances your number one priority and once you do, you’ll be on your way to lasting relief.

[Ed. note: Jesse Cannone is a certified fitness trainer, rehabilitation specialist and co-founder of the Healthy Back Institute.  His bestselling "Lose the Back Pain" system has helped thousands of people with underlying muscle imbalances eliminate their back pain for good.  Jesse is a recognized expert in the treatment of back pain and has been featured on major TV news programs, radio programs, magazines like Woman's World and Entrepreneur and on leading website like Spine-Health.com, Ediets.com and About.com. For more information on his "Lose the Back Pain" system, click here.]

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