What Volleyball Teaches Us About Low Back Pain and the Nervous System
Is Your Nervous System Secretly Sabotaging Your Back? Let’s Find Out!
Imagine your foot, knee, hip, back, shoulder, head are all individual players on a volleyball team and your nervous system is the coach. The coach needs to keep the team playing as efficiently as possible. In the case of life, the nervous system helps you survive by finding the most efficient way for you to move. However, no coach is perfect!
Your nervous system could be the hidden culprit behind your persistent back pain. Intrigued? We’re going to walk through the 7 step process describing how back pain can “come out of nowhere.” We’re going to use the volleyball coach analogy to bring this example to life.
Picture: Coach Dave Powell and the Needham High School Boy Championship Volleyball Team.
Step 1: The Accidental Ankle Sprain: The Coach Calls a Meeting (Time-Out).
Injured Player Makes Coach Call Time-Out
Picture this: Your star front row hitter on the volleyball team sprains his ankle and he is unable to jump. You are the coach. You notice this and calls a time-out to assess the situation.
Step 2: The Emergency Adjustment- Limp
Quick Adjustment
You decide to switch the hitter to play back row defense instead. You replace him with a shorter backup hitter. You adjusts the position of everyone else to make this possible. Your adjustment worked and you won the game! Good job coach!
Your modified play is akin to the limp your nervous system draws up after an ankle injury.
Step 3. The Ankle Heals, But the Limp Lingers
Player Recovers, But Coach is Cautious
Two games later, your star hitter recovers. But you’re still a little spooked by his last injury. There’s still a lot of games left to play and you can’t risk your star player getting hurt again. Because the last game ended in a win, you continue to run your modified play for 10% of the games “just in case.”
Just because your ankle feels better, your nervous system might still hold onto a shadow of your limp as a protective mechanism.
Step 4. The Domino Effect: The Left Hip Gets Involved
Oh No! Another Player Gets Injured
In 10% of the games, your defensive players are getting increasingly stressed because your shorter backup hitter wasn’t effective. Eventually, one of your defensive players get hurt diving for a ball that should have been blocked.
When you change the strategy for how you move (even a fraction), you start a domino effect of “compensatory” movement patterns.
Step 5. Shifting the Load: The Pelvis’ New Role
Coach Calls Time-Out & Makes A Funky Adjustment
You need to think of something quick! You got creative and drew up a play nobody expected. It was pretty funky, but the game resumed
Anterior Pelvic Tilt is just a compensatory strategy your nervous system came up with to help you survive. This is why addressing Anterior Pelvic tilt
Step 6. The Spine's Tactical Maneuver: Keeping the Team Upright
Coach Decides He Needs a Better Strategy So He Trains The Backup
You decide you need a better strategy. The funky play from the last game was not going to cut it. You have a great idea! You’re going to train the shorter backup hitter to jump higher. Surely, this is the solution!
Step 7. The Unexpected Twist: Sudden Back Pain
Backup Player Starts To Get Hurt
Fun Facts: The backup hitter is 5’10” and the star hitter is 6’7”. Furthermore, the backup hitter didn’t want to play volleyball. He joined the team just to have something on his resume. 🤦🏻
It was never going to work, but you still think this is the best strategy. He gets more and more frustrated and starts to complain every game.
Big Picture!
In this volleyball coach analogy, your backup hitter is your low back. He is the one who is making a fuss, but not the true cause for all the chaos that’s happening. When you zoom out and assess the whole situation, you’ll realize that getting your original star hitter back to 100% would set off a reverse domino effect that fixes the entire system.
Traditional Rehab Vs. Nervous System-Centered Physical Therapy
A nervous system-centered physical therapy approach look at the problem very differently, allowing you to create results that lasts.
Would This Approach Work For Me?
Our pioneering nervous system-centered physical therapy approach has been the key to lasting success for numerous clients who found traditional therapy approaches ineffective.
To explore whether this approach is the right fit for you, all it takes is booking a complimentary Zoom consultation call with one of our dedicated physical therapists. This is your opportunity to connect with us directly, ask questions, and gain confidence before committing to your first appointment.
It's time to leave behind fleeting solutions and embark on a journey toward lasting, pain-free transformation—the one you've been seeking all along!