Back Pain Relief Through Manual Labor

by Joseph
(Los Angeles, CA)

I have suffered from chronic back pain for about half my life, which became aggravated a few years ago due to a car accident. I’ve tried just about everything out there to get some relief, including physical therapy, chiropractic, medications, massage, yoga, etc.

Of these, I would have to say that yoga has helped the most, but I have trouble disciplining myself enough to maintain a regular yoga routine.

Chiropractic brings temporary relief, and seems to be an unfortunate necessity for me, usually on a monthly basis. But it's expensive and I suspect that it does about as much harm as it does good, and it's about as addictive as the various pain medications I have taken.

Physical therapy hasn’t help me too much, and has felt like it did more harm than good at times. As with yoga, I have trouble maintaining a regular exercise routine, so that hasn’t been a good answer to my problems.

Interestingly enough, I discovered a few ago that hard manual labor has actually helped my back more than anything else. I started doing plastering work for a couple of years, which involved a lot of heavy lifting, bending, and basically all kinds of work that most would consider back-breaking work.

I had always feared that hard labor would make my back problems worse. But I discovered that after a few months of full-time labor, my back muscles became so much stronger that I did not even feel the need to go to a chiropractor or take pain killers. There were definitely days when I lifted a bucket of plaster the wrong way, not lifting from the knees like I should have been, and threw my back out. But in general, I would have to say my back was in better shape than it has been in over 10 years due to my regular hard labor.

It was definitely the longest I was able to last without chiropractic since my problems began. So if you are anything like me and you have trouble disciplining yourself with a regular rigorous work-out routine, you might consider building up your back strength by doing some kind of hard labor.

Of course you will want to take it slow at first, and obviously not everyone is capable of hard work, depending on your condition etc., but I hope someone reads this who may be afraid of hard labor, like I was, and be encouraged to take my advice and get a labor job.

Nothing has been harder on my back than office jobs, where I sit at a computer desk all day, and then have no energy for exercise after work. Hope this helps!