Tension = Backache

Why does tension attack the back? And why does tension take up ‘residence’ in the very specific place (between the shoulder blades up to the base of the neck)? After so many years of practising and teaching Yoga, what I can say that emotional, physical and postural tensions are the main culprits.

Tension can be emotional. Tension in the back is directly related to the state of MIND. Automatically, when we’re upset, we curl up. This posture takes a lot of effort, straining and fatiguing the muscles in your upper back and neck. The longer you despair, the more strained and tired those muscles get. And worse, the muscles in front of your chest will begin to shorten, pulling you even lover. It’s no accident of language that I refer to an unhappy person as being ‘down’.

I’m going to tell you something shocking – unhappy people are prone to injury and illness. Nearly 80% of all the physical problems I encounter are related, directly or indirectly, to tension and pressure. No matter what I do to unlock the body or show how successful I am in restoring function, sooner or later, she/he are going to come back unless she/he gets a handle on life. I’m not saying that getting happy will guarantee a lifetime of health and injury-free, but it helps. Big time.

Tension can be physical. The emotional aspect of carrying tension between the shoulder blades is not the only culprit. Fitness or lack thereof, plays an even bigger role.

When your back is pain, your abdominal muscles are the suspected cause. Weak abs cause the pelvis to be unstable, so the back (all the way from sacrum to the skull) has to compensate to keep our body balanced and erect in posture. But without the assistance of supporting abdominal muscles, your struggling back becomes very unstable.

While the problem originates at your pelvis, it qualifies as a full-blown disaster by the time it reaches your head. Weighing between 3.6 – 5.4kg, the head is pretty heavy! When the abdominal muscles are weak and the back is struggling to compensate, that heavy head pulls the spine forwards. Shoulder follow suits as the front of the shoulder foreshorten and collapse. This sag may be subtle at first, but it doesn’t take long for the upper back, designed to stabilize, to become fatigued from trying to support weight.

A strong, fit body ensures that all your muscles are doing their jobs and that they are sparing your back from having to compensate.

Tension can be postural. People can even make tension between shoulders worse by postural mistakes.

When you sleep on your side with a pillow that fails to support your head and neck, you collapse your lower shoulder, folding it towards your chest and straining the muscles in your back for hours.

When you work at your desk, you sit and pull all your action in front of you, so that you reach out and down towards the desk – and your upper back is stressed.

When you drive, you reach forwards and up to steer – and your upper back is stressed.

When you eat, your plate is on the table in front of you, so you reach down and towards it – and your upper back is stressed.

Add personal tension to biomechanical mistakes and long-term fatigue, and you have a knotted, cramped upper back.

When those muscles between the shoulder blades become fatigued, they begin to shut down in a process that is like strangulation; the area were deprived of oxygen, as blood flow is slowly squeezed off when tissue constrict. Fresh oxygenated blood not only carry oxygen to muscles but it also helps to carry away metabolic waste generated (like lactic acid) when muscles fire.

While many back problems originate in that upper back zone, they don’t necessarily stay there. Just when you thought you couldn’t be more locked up and incapacitated, this pain sneaks down to your lower back to hobble your step, creeps up your neck to inflict a world-class tension headache or radiates down your arms in an exhausting ache or shooting pain.

Back and shoulder problems aren’t always the result of a postural imbalance or an incorrect performed exercise; sometimes the root cause can be a lot deeper.