Injury to back muscles can occur due to wide range of reasons. Your back muscles can get strained and torn from improper lifting of heavy object to more serious traumatic car accidents. Whatever may be the cause for back muscle injury, the pain is extremely debilitating. It can interfere with your daily activities and your work schedule.
Steps taken during recovery period of back muscle injury:
After the injury often a person is tempted to work routinely as he used to before injury to his back. But for few days he must take rest so that the injured muscles will get time to recover.
- Rest is essential for few days.
- Follow deep breathing exercises daily as it will help to relax the muscles of back. If you are tensed and stressed mentally during this period, your muscles may also become tense and slow down the recovery process.
- Maintain proper posture and body movement during the rehabilitation. Poor posture can aggravate the pain and delay the recovery of injured muscles.
- Keep patience and give some time for healing.
Exercise to strengthen your back muscles after injury:
After the injured muscles have healed and your doctor will recommend to start physiotherapy rehabilitating exercises for back muscles. This will help to strengthen them and prevent chronic pain in back. Following exercises are beneficial:
- Pelvic tilt: It helps to improve range of motion of back as well as gluteal muscles of pelvis. To do this you have to lie down and fold your legs from the knee. Keep both your feet touched to the ground. Keep your hands sideways to the ground. Hold two or three fingers on the hip bone. Now move the pelvis upwards keeping the leg bent from knee and foot on ground. Hold it for three seconds and move the hipbone downwards to the ground.
- Hip bridge: It helps to strengthen the muscles of legs, hip as back.
- Leg slides: Leg slide is an easy exercise. It is effective in strengthening the core muscles of back. Keep your feet flat on the ground with knees bent. Now slowly straighten one leg at a time by dragging your heal. Repeat with other leg.
Foods that you must eat to strengthen your back after back injury:
Diet, exercise and maintaining healthy weight are three important criteria in strengthening your back. A good balanced diet with several healthy nutrients is beneficial for back muscles to heal faster after an injury. Here are few ideas of what to eat when you are recovering from back muscle injury:
- Eat foods that contain calcium. The best source of calcium is dairy products such as milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese etc. Certain fish such as sardines, salmon also are rich in calcium besides some of the vegetables such as kale and bok choy.
- Magnesium: Magnesium helps in proper contraction and relaxation of muscles. Magnesium is present in green leafy vegetables, banana, avocados, nuts and seeds, dark chocolate etc.
- Vitamin D is essential for absorption of calcium. It is useful for development of strong bones which support the back. Exposure to sunlight is a good source of vitamin D.
- Collagen is a substance that helps to hold the muscle fibers together. In fact collagen is found in tendons, bones, skin, etc. Adequate amount of vitamin C is useful during healing of the muscles. Vitamin C is high in fruits and vegetables. Fruits such as guava, lemon, lime, orange, grapes, and vegetables such as spinach, peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes etc are rich source of vitamin C.