You’ve suddenly put your back out for no apparent reason. Maybe it’s happened before, maybe it hasn’t. (In any case, as soon as you can, do get a check up from your doctor just to make sure this isn’t something more serious than just putting your back out).

Putting one’s back out like this is a very common occurrence and usually leads to anything from a few days to weeks of suffering and loss of mobility. Sometimes the problem becomes chronic and never goes away. So what happens?

These three things happen

1. You tighten the deep muscles at the bottom of your spine (especially multifidus).
2. You let your Transversus Abdominis go slack.
3. You hold your breath.

What does all this do?

Tightening the muscles at the bottom of your back makes you arch your lower back, pulling your chest off your belly. As a result, more of your weight has to be carried by your back instead of resting on your hydraulic support.

Tightening multifidus also pulls the back of your pelvis together. This pulling together at the back causes your pelvis to splay out — to widen out in front, giving you temporarily broader hips.

This widening makes more room at the bottom of your abdominal/pelvic bag, so that the organs that your bag contains all drop down a little. This dropping then means that your chest no longer has the support it previously had.

The widening of your hips means you’ve lost even more hydraulic support than you already did when you lifted your chest. With even less support, your back muscles have to pull even harder to prevent the bottom of your spine collapsing forwards. That extra pull pulls even harder on the back of your pelvis, splaying your hips out even more.

More splaying out of your pelvis creates yet another problem. This splaying out can also put considerable strain on your sacro-iliac joint, destabilising your pelvis itself as well as your lower back.

But what about your breath?

You daren’t even breathe

When you breathe while in this unstable state, you’re going to have moments when the strain on the bottom of your back gets even worse than it already is. So, not daring to breathe, you hold your breath.

Holding your breath is another disaster because free breathing is an essential part of maintaining the balance of muscles in this area. If you don’t breathe freely, it becomes nearly impossible to loosen up again.

Knowing all this, what should you do when you put your back out?

The key to putting your back in again

(If you’ll forgive the play on words, “putting your back in again” is actually a very good description of what needs to happen when you’ve just put your back out).

So what should you do?

Step 1: Stop

Stop. Freeze. Stay totally still.

The danger to avoid is that you’ll panic and immediately move in an inappropriate way while your back is still very unstable. Don’t do that. Keep still while you get your wits together. If you stop soon enough and gather your wits before proceeding, you might even get away with not causing any damage at all. That would be wonderful because, if you damage muscle, it’s going to need time to heal. The less you damage, the quicker your healing can be afterwards.

Once still, it’s time to gather your wits.

Step 2: Get your wits together

First, take the time to notice that you’re still alive, that, provided you stay still, you’re not in great pain. (Your instinct that moving at this moment would cause you pain is correct so don’t bother trying).

Now pay attention to your breathing and allow yourself to be aware of your breath. Don’t try and alter it in any way: just be aware of it. As you watch your breathing, it will begin to ease a little and you will also feel a little calmer.

Now notice the tightness at the bottom of your back, where it hurts. Again don’t try and do anything with it: just be aware of it, explore it. Feel it with your hand. Maybe rub it gently if you can.

Now notice the front of your pelvis. That’s the soft area between the front of your two hip bones. Notice how all the muscle tone has disappeared and how that lowest part of your belly has gone phut. Notice also how your hips have widened out.

Once you’ve taken plenty of time to get your wits together, to assess your situation and to notice these details, it’s time to start doing something about it.

What you need to do is actually not doing, it’s thinking constructively.

Step 3: Think what needs to happen

It’s time to think what needs to happen for your body to get back together again. This is where our earlier analysis of what happened is going to stand us in good stead.

We found that you’ve lost your hydraulic support. You’ve lost it in two ways:–

1. By shortening your back so that it arches backwards and lifts your chest off your belly.
2. By narrowing the very bottom of your back so that it splays your hips out. At the same time, remember, you let your pelvic support muscles go phut. The result is that the hydraulic platform for your chest has dropped: even if you hadn’t lifted your chest back and up, your chest’s support would in any case have dropped away.

What needs to happen to undo these two things?

You need to work in reverse order. First you need to restore the platform for your chest to rest on. Then you need to drop your chest back onto it. This reverse order is vital: it’s no good freeing up your back so that your chest can once again find its support if there is no support there for it to find.

Step 4: Think how to let your hips unsplay

The first step is to imagine a broad tight belt around your hips. Encourage the front of your belly to un-phut. Persuade the muscles there to begin to work a little. Notice how, as you do that, slowly your hips come together a little again. Once you’ve got that working as well as you can manage at the moment, just keep it going while you move on to the next part of this step.

The next part of this step is to allow the muscles at the back of your hips to release. Allow the back of your hips to widen so that those muscles stop pulling the back of your hips together. This way, you stop splaying the front of your hips out.

These two parts of step 4 will combine to make your hips narrower again (at least somewhat narrower). This will push your abdominal/pelvic organs upwards. This, in turn, will raise the hydraulic support that should have been there for your chest back up again. It won’t go all the way to where it should be but every bit counts.

Now for the next step.

Step 5: Think to allow your lower back to release

Allow your back muscles to begin to soften. Think to allow your lower back to begin to release upwards so that you stop arching backwards. Allow your chest to drop forwards and down. You will need to allow it to drop a little more than usual before it begins to get some hydraulic support from your abdominal/pelvic bag.

At last you’re beginning to get back together again

Now that you’ve got a little hydraulic support to rest on, it becomes easier for you to let your back lengthen up and deposit your chest onto that support. Also, now that you’ve got some weight resting on your hydraulic support again, it becomes easier to persuade your support muscles to work a bit more and raise the hydraulic support a bit higher. (Your support muscles need that weight to stimulate them to work).

You’ve gone from a vicious circle of constantly worsening instability to a virtuous circle where growing stability builds more stability. Your back is beginning to loosen up and you can begin to move a little. Provided you don’t lose concentration, you can even move without that much pain. For God’s sake don’t let your attention wander.

But all that’s grueling hard work. You’re now absolutely exhausted. It’s time for a rest.

Step 6: Time to lie down

Whereas, at first, lying down would have been unthinkable (it would have been much too painful) now it’s just about doable. Make sure you keep your concentration going while you get down on the floor. That attention will keep the virtuous circle going and minimise the strain on your back. Let your attention wander at this point and all hell will break loose again. So stay focussed as you lie down. If you know how to do semi-supine, go into your semi-supine. Otherwise lie down in whatever way you’re able to at the moment.

Once you’re down, stay there for as long as you can to rest those exhausted muscles. Don’t let yourself go phut again. This isn’t a relaxation exercise: keep up your attention on allowing the bottom of your back to lengthen and widen and encouraging your support muscles in front to work. Still don’t force anything. It’s clarity of attention and determination to keep it going that will get you there.

You’re likely to find it uncomfortable to stay lying still for long. If you do find it uncomfortable, then roll over onto your side and push yourself back up to sitting. Then roll out into semi-supine again. You’ll find you’re at least a little more comfortable this second time than you were at first. If you need to, keep rolling over and lying down again each time you get too uncomfortable to lie still without wriggling.

If at all possible, stay lying down for an hour. If not, when it gets too much, take yourself off to bed and get some sleep. Whatever you do, while your awake don’t lose attention to what you’re doing.

Congratulations

You’ve just completed an excellent job of damage limitation and put yourself well on the way to recovery.

Your next steps

There are three next steps:–

1. See your doctor as soon as possible to check that everything is now alright, that you’re on the road to a quick recovery from having put your back out.
2. Keep using steps four, five and six above. If you have any Alexander Technique experience, combine those steps with what you learnt in your lessons or from my articles.
3. If you haven’t had any Alexander lessons yet, find a teacher and book yourself in. If you have, still book yourself in for at least another couple of lessons to continue your progress in learning how to rid yourself of the bad movement habits that put your back out in the first place.