About 10 years ago, I experienced a dreadful episode of low-back pain. It affected my sleep, my studying, and, worst of all, it wouldn’t go away. If anyone had suggested that running was a potent and safe means of recovery, I would have assumed they were extraterrestrials from Pluto.
Well, I can tell you today that I am not from Pluto, and there is new and exciting research from Neason et al. in Australia informing us that running is a secure means of improving low-back pain.
This research group recruited 40 individuals suffering from chronic non-specific low-back pain (no mechanical triggers of pain) for an average of 3-5 years. Half of the group was randomized to a walk/run program, done 3 times per week for 12 weeks. The other half kept living their usual life (control group). Pain scales and the Oswestry Disability Index were used to track symptoms at baseline, 6 weeks and 12 weeks.
Now, I mentioned running, but the nuances are in the details. Neason and colleagues likely understood that a self-directed running program could lead to injury and dropout, so they cleverly delivered an online walk-run program.
It started very gently, with Week 1 having only 4.5 minutes of running, so as not to provoke any low back symptoms, and then gradually built tolerance to a total time of 54 minutes by Week 12. Below is a visualization showing how walking versus running initially represented most of the sessions, which eventually transitioned to much more running.
Regarding safety, nine walk/run participants had an adverse event, with seven having lower limb injuries, one experiencing a syncopal episode, and one with recurrent low-back pain. While this was 45% of the cohort, all but one of the participants returned to the running program.
This is a crucial insight, as it indicates that this group’s low-back pain was not worsening, and the program genuinely appeared beneficial. This is further supported by the improvements in pain and function seen over the course of 12 weeks in the walk/run group, compared to the controls, in which some had worsening pain by the end of the study.
Despite the magnitude of these improvements, the authors state that these measures do not meet the minimal clinical difference of 20 points for pain or 10 for disability. From a clinical perspective, what stands out to me is how pain did not worsen and compliance was around 70% over 12 weeks.
I think the authors would have benefitted by specifying the frequency of runs per week as this may have accounted for the running-related injuries reported. Too much, too soon, or insufficient mechanical stress is a recipe for injuries.
Ultimately, under the careful and virtual eye of the clinician, those suffering from non-specific low-back pain can potentially and safely benefit from this 12-week walk/run program.
Postscript: To close my story, I did, coincidentally, start running, which alleviated my back pain. However, this eventually led to the onset of running injuries, but that’s a story for another time.
This story was originally posted on therunningclinic.com- https://therunningclinic.com/runners/blog/is-running-helpful-for-those-suffering-from-low-back-pain/