Compared to boxing, football or basketball, jogging has a low incidence of injury, but it is still a repetitive stress type activity. The joints in your legs and spine are your shock absorption system and if you overdo it, they can get injured. Most lower back pain will resolve in a couple of weeks, but learning what caused it can help prevent reinjury.
Causes
Every time your foot hits the ground when you are running, your body has to absorb the impact. In a 1-mile run, that adds up to more than a thousand impacts per foot. As your muscles fatigue, more of that stress gets through to the joints and results in irritation of the joint structures, inflammation and swelling.
Types of Back Pain
Back pain can originate in muscles, joints or nerves. Muscle strains are tears in the muscle tissue from overexertion. Existing arthritis or degenerative change in spinal joints makes the risk of injury higher. Injury can occur to the spinal disc, the pad between the spinal bones, and lead to disc bulge, protrusion, or herniation. Pressure from a bulging disc can irritate or compress a spinal nerve.
Prevention
Avoid injury by maintaining your shock absorption abilities. Start with a warm-up stretch or slower run before exercise. Make stretching a part of your workout. A standing hamstring stretch can be done by bending forward at the hips and hanging down like you're going to touch your toes. Calf stretches are done by facing a wall and leaning forward keeping your heels on the ground as you feel the pull in your calves. Hip flexors stretches are done in a lunge position, holding the position and stretching the trailing front of the trailing leg.
Treatment
For acute low back pain, start with ice packs over the area of pain for 10 to 20 minutes. Apply this five to 10 times per day. Lie down and pull your knee to your chest to stretch out your lower back. Repeat five to 10 times. When your pain begins to improve, start light stretching of your hamstrings and hip flexors to loosen up the muscle tension around your lower back.
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