When we feel pain or discomfort lying down, our sleep is often first to suffer. The issue here is sleep is so important in terms of keeping us healthy.
So how can you get a better night’s sleep?
You need to work on what’s causing your discomfort. There are many different things that can cause your back to ache but let’s look at an issue that I used to have.
Weakness in the muscles on the outside of my hips (hip abductors). The imbalance from the muscles around my hips left my sacro-iliac (si) joints susceptible to strain from movement. For me, this felt like tightness around my right inner thigh. It felt like it needed to be constantly stretched. There was always a tenderness in my lower back around my SI joint.
Image: Ess Anatomy Hip abductors
Image: Ess Anatomy - SI joints
Bending forward was uncomfortable, but not painful, but being able to lift or move heavy items was challenging, . Sitting for long periods were also uncomfortable and involved a lot of fidgeting. Fortunately for me, it didn’t massively affect my sleep however some nights were more uncomfortable depending on the position I slept in. Sleeping on my left side was probably the worse as it pulled more on the SI joint. For me, the discomfort was only felt on my right side.
I know I’m not the only one who has had this issue as I’ve worked with many clients who have had similar or worse. Sometimes, clients feel it on both sides of their SI joints, others just one side. Symptoms range from back stiffness to debilitating pain.
So what can we do to remedy this and feel better?
Rebalance the muscles in the hips using soft tissue therapy, to create a better/healthier alignment to work from.
Strengthen and retrain the muscles around the hips and core to create endurance in the muscles that stabilise the pelvis.
Often we are prescribed exercises to strengthen the glutes as the glutes generally are weak, however we need to look at all the muscles around the hips, by testing the strength of every movement and create balance.
You also need to combine the ability to engage your core as your core plays a huge role in pelvic stability.
When doing exercises to rehabilitate movement, exercises tend to be isolated to specific groups. This is necessary as a starting point, but you then have to follow it up with integration so you relearn how your muscles work together in every day movements.
Why do my clients get results when previously they failed?
When I work with clients, I ensure they know what to feel for in these isolation exercises, as we use them as foundation movements, that feed into larger movements. If you don’t know what to feel for, you are more likely to use the wrong muscles to make your movements and this doesn’t help you long term.
This is the main difference - being aware of what you are using and feeling is key to creating change.
The second factor in getting good outcomes is I help my clients be in the best position to benefit from the exercises they are doing. Their muscles are receptive to the work they need to do and no longer inhibited. This is done through initial soft tissue work.
The third factor is I get my clients to integrate their new learned movements into everyday functional movements as part of their process.
What exercises are good for strengthening the outside of the hip?
Exercises such as clams and fire hydrants will help strengthen the outside of the hips and these worked extremely well for me. These exercises are a great starting point, but will need to be followed up with more integrative exercises such as walking, lunging, squatting, pulling, pushing and turning.
If you have poor core engagement, this also needs to be addressed.
If you are struggling to get improvements with lower back pain, whether you resonate with the symptoms I had or if your symptoms are different, please do get in touch as you don’t need to suffer.
I am Sabrina Qua - Soft Tissue Therapist, Movement Coach and Personal Trainer based in Worcester Park, Greater London, who helps people reduce their muscular aches and pains through an integrative approach, so they can live active, enjoyable lives.