It is estimated that approximately 80% of everyone will suffer from low back pain at some time in their lives. Low back pain is second only to headaches as the most common complaint in the United States. Low back pain can affect your daily lives, forcing you to miss work, or you are unable to play with your kids and possibly you will have difficulty sleeping at night.

What Causes Low Back Pain?
To understand how low back pain occurs, let me first how your lower spine works. The last five vertebrae are called your lumbar spine. They are much larger than the rest of your spine, so they can carry the majority of your upper weight. The lumbars are also curved inward (toward the front of the body) so they have shock absorbing ability, to avoid injuring your spine during walking, running and jumping. In between each lumbar spine is a disc, that helps in the lumbar spines function. In these discs are a jelly like substance (nucleus pulposus)that help stabilize the disc.There are also muscles and ligaments that help stabilize the back and allow movement of your lumbar spine.

Most back pain occurs as a result of a problem in the normal function of the lumbar spine. Usually some sort of trauma has occurred. Maybe your work involves a lot of heavy lifting, straining your muscles, pulling ligaments or inflaming joint capsules. If you lift beyond your muscles capacity, you may injure your disc, causing the it to bulge, placing pressure on a nerve or even tearing the disc itself.