Lower back pain from rollerblading
Thomas Louie
Almost every time I go out and blade for a while, I'll get lower back pain. It's painful enough to make it hard to stand up straight. Any advice?
-Tom "ouch" Louie
George Robbins
>
> Almost every time I go out and blade for a while, I'll get
> lower back pain. It's painful enough to make it hard to stand
> up straight. Any advice?
What's a while? Are you being recreational or competitive?
From what I've heard, some back pain goes with the territory,
especially if you're spending much time in racing crouch.
If not, have someone evaluate your posture and/or compare it
to other skaters. For general skating you want a fairly
erect posture, with your weight evenly balanced over your
feet. It is possible to slip into leaning forward position
with more weight on your toes, watching the ground, but this
makes for more work all round.
If you think your posture might be less than ideal, try making
a concious effort to stay erect, head up, looking at the
horizon, possibly a slight arch to the back. Try to look ahead
for obstacles and use your peripheral vison, not scan the ground
in front of your toenails.
If you think you posture is good, try to work through a sequence
of positions as you go, from a racing crouch to a fully erect
arched position. This should spread the load instead of relying
on one particular set of muscles to handle the whole job.
--
George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing: domain: g...@cbmvax.commodore.com
Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)
Ricardo Pincheira
>In article <1991Jun14.0...@athena.mit.edu> tlo...@athena.mit.edu (Thomas Louie) writes:
>>
>> Almost every time I go out and blade for a while, I'll get
>> lower back pain. It's painful enough to make it hard to stand
>> up straight. Any advice?
>
>
>especially if you're spending much time in racing crouch.
>erect posture, with your weight evenly balanced over your
>feet.
> . . . .. .Try to look ahead
>for obstacles and use your peripheral vison, not scan the ground
>in front of your toenails.
>
>If you think you posture is good, try to work through a sequence
>of positions as you go, from a racing crouch to a fully erect
>arched position. This should spread the load instead of relying
>on one particular set of muscles to handle the whole job.
>
Here's a bit more on back pain from skating, expanding somewhat
on George's excellent suggestions. I'm a terrible skater
and have been using in-lines for only a few months, but
that's precisely what makes my opinion 1/2 worthwhile, in that I haven't
lost my naive viewpoint or forgotten how things were at the beginning.
Plus, it's been such a rainy spring here in Seattle that just when
you start feeling a bit better, it starts raining again and you don't get
to skate for a few days and are back to square 1, almost.
First, the more you skate, the stronger your back will get, and the less
sore it will feel. It sounds stupid, but because for some reason it
seems to take much longer for the back than the legs to develop, you might
be skeptical. Be patient.
Second, when one is starting out, either a beginner or at the start of
the season, one has a tendency to crouch not by
bending the knees, but by bending the back. Ouch. This really puts
a lot of stress on the back. Plus, it will put you too much over the
toes, kind of like the leaning tower of Pisa, a faceplant waiting to
happen. Bend your knees! It will take some time for your legs
to become strong enough to be able to "sit" back w/o falling backwards
(the posture is kind of the one you would take if on a hiking trip you had to
go behind a bush to answer a "call of nature"), but once that happens, once
you can sit back like that, you can crouch not by arching the back,
but by sort of leaning your whole trunk forward from your butt,
keeping the lower back itself straight.
Third, push out to the side. This, by the way, is pretty much only
possible if your knees are well bent and you are in a "sitting" position,
with your weight evenly on the skates or even a bit on the heels.
If instead of pushing out to the side you push back,
your back muscles too are going to be involved pushing the leg back.
Ouch, very tiring for such small and weak muscles. By the way, I think
the stroke with in-lines is a bit more to the back than with conventional
skates, where it is out to the side. At least that's to what I attribute
the fact that with the in lines my back gets more sore than with
the conventionals, with which I hardly have a sore back problem.
Fourth, learn to put both hands behind your back. First, because
your arms will be resting against your back, rather than hanging down from
your shoulders, your upper body's weight is in effect reduced by the
weight of your arms. Even for a skinny guy like me, that's got to be
at least 10 pounds. Second, there's a bit of a cantilever effect, in
that your arms will also be carrying some of the weight of your
upper body. In short, your back will have to hold up a lot less weight,
and so it won't get tired as much. This "racing crouch" to which
George referred is a very relaxing posture, much more relaxing and
energy-conserving than a "recreational" straight legs, straight back
posture. Plus, it's got a nice rhythm that sort of matches your brain's
alpha waves or something like that and so is mentally very relaxing as well.
Lastly, as George points out, stretch while you're skating. I've found that
doing a few crossovers periodically really gives your back a nice stretch,
probably because you're sort of twisting your hips a little relative
to the trunk. Sore legs and back not only affects your form, but are also
a safety hazard in that they affect your balance and at least for me,
my ability to brake. Another tip is that when your form starts to go,
or if on some day things just don't feel right, just stop for a minute
or 2 and start again. The fresh start seems to get rid of whatever
was causing the problem.
Ricardo
Ps - A few days ago while out on a walk I saw a couple of guys on
Zandstra's drafting each other, skating with perfect form, soooo elegant.
It's amazing how beautiful this sport is. . .
Thomas Louie
[Lots of observations and good advice, as did a lot of other people]
I want to thank everyone for writing back, you've been most helpful. Lately, I've tried keeping one hand behind my back and swinging the other one. This seems to help reduce my back pain and the arm swinging seems to help me coordinate my leg strokes.
More on blades: does the hinged cuff on the inline-skates do anything? I notice that mine flexes very little at the joint. Any comments?
-Tom
Philip Earnhardt
>>
>> Almost every time I go out and blade for a while, I'll get
>> lower back pain. It's painful enough to make it hard to stand
>> up straight. Any advice?
>
>What's a while? Are you being recreational or competitive?
>
>From what I've heard, some back pain goes with the territory,
>especially if you're spending much time in racing crouch.
>
Both competetive and recreational ice speed skaters will participate in
dryland training. This involves a lot of "low work", some running and
sprinting, slide board work, and whatever other tortures your coach dreams up.
Good stuff.
I know the Speed Roller Skating crowd is into this, too: there was an
anouncement about a training video and slide board blueprints about a year ago
in Skate Express. (Skate Express was a quarterly newsletter published by
Kryptonics. They recently decided to stop publishing since RS Mag seems
to be getting off the ground OK.)
There is a Speed Skating club in the Boston area; they skate at the Boston
Skating Club. I imagine they have dryland training available. I'd guess they
could show you some things to help your back problems. On the other hand,
other parts of your body (e.g. quads) might start hurting worse :-).
Phil Earnhardt p...@netwise.com
Netwise, Inc. Boulder, CO (303) 442-8280