Austria, Australia, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland
This no-nonsense website is an excellent resource for preventative and therapeutic strength training. Their slogan? “A strong back knows no pain.” They have locations worldwide, and will conduct a free first personal session to lay out your situation and your training goals.
Washington
Dr. Stanley A. Herring is a clinical professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, in the departments of Rehabilitation Medicine, Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, and Neurological Surgery. Though he specializes in sports-medicine (working on a team of physicians for the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners), his expertise is also in non-operative musculoskeletal medicine and disorders of the spine.
Oregon
The Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton, OR (essentially Portland) developed this Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation Clinic at Cornell West to address sports medicine, spine care, joint care (along with knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, and hand care), pediatric care, X-ray and imaging, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. The clinic has thirteen primary providers, each with their specialty, but almost all have rehabilitation as an area of expertise.
ACE, the American Council on Exercise, sponsored a study in 2007 that assessed the effects of functional fitness rehabilitation programs, aimed to help older adults remain active and independent as they age. The results were decidedly positive: read a writeup on the study, which details examples of the kinds of exercises the participants performed and tracks changes over the course of the study. The website also has a trainer search function so you can get started with a fitness program.
Colorado
Whitfield Reaves, one of the bigshots in sports medicine and acupuncture, developed Acupuncture Sports Medicine in Boulder, CO, which integrates orthopedics and acupuncture into a thorough treatment program for athletes suffering from sports injuries and other musculoskeletal conditions.
You can also read an article by Reaves titled “Low Back Pain: The Quadratus Lumborum Muscle.”
If you’re unable to travel to a convenient clinic location, the website MyRehabExercise provides programs and exercises. Ask your physical therapist to select your exercises here, and you’ll always have access to them on your phone.
The namesake and founder of the Norman Marcus Pain Institute is an author and researcher who specializes in pain medicine models. His book, End Back Pain Forever, provides a good overview of what ails you, and how to get on the road to recovery.
The website Perform Better has products, seminars, and “ask-the-expert” videos with professionals that are all focused on functional training, rehabilitation, and sports performance.
Weight training is good exercise for anyone, but the New York Times ran an article detailing how kettlebells can be used as therapy for back and neck pain.
If you find the right physical medicine and rehabilitation (which you’ll most commonly see abbreviated as PM&R) doc (they are also called “physiatrists”), your back will be in excellent hands. Look for a physiatrist who has done a fellowship in spine medicine. This site lists programs that offer PM&R fellowships, so that’s a first step toward finding a good resource. Physiatrists are MDs and DOs (doctors of osteopathic medicine) who specialize in working with patients with nerve, muscle, bone, and neurological conditions. They are talented diagnosticians, skilled in discerning the source of your problem and also familiar with biomechanics and exercise physiology. If someone claims to be an “interventional physiatrist,” it means that he or she focuses on giving injections. That’s a signal that you are in the wrong place, so look some more.
Click here for the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation’s patient page.
For spine specifics, check here.
The doctor search function is here.
It can be quite difficult to find a PM&R doc who really focuses on the rehabilitation part, rather than the “let’s give some shots and make some money” part. Doctors who work for university hospital systems are not as compelled to perform income-producing procedures as their self-employed brethren. A phone call or email to The Association of Academic Physiatrists on this list should yield someone good.
For an eye-opening read about JFK’s back pain and Hans Kraus, the exercise doctor who banished it, see JFK’S Secret Doctor: The Remarkable Life of Medical Pioneer and Legendary Rock Climber Hans Kraus.
In this video, Jacqueline Kennedy sheds new light on the severity of JFK’s back pain.
Finding a highly qualified, back pain-focused personal trainer or exercise specialist is no simple task. Anyone can call himself or herself a personal trainer. To find the person you need, the American College of Sports Medicine is an excellent resource.
The NSCA is the National Strength and Conditioning Association, based in Colorado Springs, CO, which – probably not a coincidence – is also the location of the flagship training center for the U.S. Olympic Committee. Several people who definitely know told me that NSCA turns out the most qualified personal trainers, most of who have degrees in exercise science. If you look for a trainer with an NSCA-CPT (certified personal trainer) certification, you’re off to a good start. Here are some things you should look for in a trainer. And here is a not-too-great index of NSCA trainers. (You can search by state, but when you do, the results are not alphabetical.)
Finding a physical therapist with orthopedic certification can be challenging, but fortunately the American Physical Therapy Association has a helpful website. After you review the material there, click here to search at a very specific level. Look for therapists who have OCS and DPT after their names. This means that they have specific orthopedic training and doctoral degrees.
Majorca, Spain
If you speak Spanish and would like to join an functional rehab program in the Balearic Islands, have a look at the program offered by the Fundación Kovacs at S’AiguaBlava. The program is called Escuela Espanola de la Espalda. There are three facilities, each with a fantastic back-oriented gym program, and an amazing “high vitality” spa – which in much of Europe means hydrotherapy in a large pool with may stations equipped with jets at different heights. The facility I visited, on Majorca, combined physical therapy with supervised, high intensity exercise.
Here (again, in Spanish) is a video with director Dr. Mario Gestoso, explaining what goes on in the Back School.
California
Craig Liebenson has been instrumental in developing the International Society of Clinical Rehabilitation Specialists, many of whom were trained as chiropractors, but have chosen to retrain in spine rehab and sports medicine. For information on providers in your area, search here. Have a look at some of Craig Liebenson’s work here. Trained as a chiropractor, he’s one of the great spine rehab specialists, located in West Los Angeles.
Here are a couple of Craig Liebenson’s articles in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, describing exercises that you can do, though it would be best to do them under supervision. See The Missing Link in Protecting Against Back Pain and How to Stabilize My Back. (Note that the exercises described here are variations of exercises that Dr. Stuart McGill has made famous, but there’s no such thing as intellectual property when you’re talking about exercises.)
Also check out the advisory committee here.
Pennsylvania
Joe Zarett, whose large facility, Zarett Rehab, is an excellent pick for getting your body back in order. He is incredibly demanding, but can help you implement the major change you need.
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Stuart McGill is a professor of biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He frequently advises governments, corporations, and elite athletes and athletic teams when it comes to difficult back cases. In his laboratory at the University of Waterloo, experts test out products and recommendations, and only the best make it to his website, BackFitPro, a repository of back pain prevention and rehabilitation information.
Watch this video to get to know McGill and his work a little better:
The book Back Care Basics: A Doctor’s Gentle Yoga Program for Back and Neck Pain Relief is a good source to read up on therapeutic yoga as a low-cost solution for back conditions. Author Mary Pullig Schatz emphasizes positivity and dedication in both the prevention and treatment of issues from strain, arthritis, osteoporosis, scoliosis, pregnancy, and stress with yoga.
Watch this video from the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Annals of Internal Medicine about how yoga can effectively treat chronic low back pain:
If you have back pain and an interest in yoga, Iyengar is for you. The website for the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States provides information on the Iyengar method as well as histories of its creators and developers (B.K.S. Iyengar is apparently known as the “Michelangelo of yoga”), research on the body and its interaction with yoga, information on Iyengar teacher certification and evaluation, links to books and articles, and a teacher search function. Iyengar yoga aims to adjust poses and practices to the individual, and to teach in stages, starting with standing poses for beginners and moving on from there to more complex poses and flows. Emphasis is on accessibility of yoga to everyone, regardless of age, physical condition, or mental and emotional state. Read an article about how Iyengar views the spine here.
For more information about the benefits of Iyengar yoga for low back pain, read this article published in the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, called “Therapeutic Application of Iyengar Yoga for Healing Chronic Low Back Pain.” And check out Yoga for Healthy Lower Backs, based off of research by the University of York.
