Editor’s note: This article is part of the Health and Fitness page’s weekly series about sports injuries based on information from the physical therapists of Cyclone Sports Medicine. This week, Jim Nespor will spotlight low-back pain.

Injuries to the lower back are not just restricted to middle-aged people in labor-intensive fields. This type of injury is more common among college students than might be assumed.

Jim Nespor, physical therapist at Cyclone Sports Medicine, said lower-back injuries can be debilitating and difficult to treat because of the complicated anatomical terrain.

“The low back is a very complex area to evaluate for a physical therapist,” he said. “It has to do with the fact that there are over 200 joints above the tail bone, and you really can’t touch or feel any of the anatomical structures — and because there are many different theories related to taking care of a low-back injury.”

Nespor said students’ back injuries tend to fall into two general categories.

“One category of injury would be the muscular/soft tissue type injury to the low back, and the second one would be the disc/nerve type problems to the back,” Nespor said.

Muscular strain injuries are the most common of the two, he said.

“Most of the time, muscle strain is due to picking up something very heavy off the floor or over-doing it with intramural activities,” Nespor said. “Generally, the pain is located in the low-back area and does not extend in any other direction.”

Picking up objects from the floor involves using great force, he said.

“The activity of picking something up off the floor places tremendous force on the low back,” he said. “Studies show that this force may be increased up to 10 times as much as the weight of the object you are picking up. People have their knees straight and bend basically at a 90-degree angle at the waist to pick up an object off the floor. Lo and behold, the injury occurs.”

The symptoms may appear immediately or show up gradually several hours after the incident, Nespor said.

He said the treatment for lower-back injuries is the use of the RICE principle (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation).

“Generally, the treatment involves the immediate use of ice as per the RICE principle,” he said. “Then a visit to the Cyclone Sports Medicine for a rehabilitation program that will emphasize a strengthening and stretching program to help the muscles recover and, hopefully, prevent a recurrence of the same type of injury.”

Disc/nerve injuries are less frequent but more serious, and they tend to develop over a long period of time, Nespor said.

“Symptoms are a little different with this injury, as the person may experience radiating symptoms into the buttocks and leg that may extend all the way down to the foot. Sometimes the person will also report tingling or pins and needles, as well,” he said.

Treatment of disc/nerve injuries requires more care and more recovery time than muscle-strain injuries, Nespor said.

“Generally, it is suggested that the person rest and be especially careful about not repeating any movements that caused the symptoms,” he said. “If this problem does not improve, the person may be referred to an orthopedic specialist and an MRI test may be done to determine the extent of the damage.”

Both types of lower back injury and their cure depend on posture and body mechanics, he said.

“People that sit with poor posture may exacerbate their symptoms,” Nespor said. “If a person continues to use bad lifting mechanics, they can probably count on another episode of the same injury.”

Nespor said Cyclone Sports Medicine therapists pay little attention to MRIs or X-ray results, however.

“Our research indicates that subjects with abnormal X-ray or MRI findings essentially can have no symptoms. The opposite of this can also be true,” he said. “You may have normal X-ray and MRI findings and have several symptoms. We do not rely heavily on clients saying they had an X-ray that showed their vertebrae were not aligned properly. We find no correlation between this and the actual injury.”

And, as always, keeping in shape is the best way to avoid a lower-back injury, Nespor said.

“The more out of condition and deconditioned the low-back muscles are, the greater the risk of injury,” he said. “A regular frequent exercise program over at the Rec Center may be your best way to prevent a low-back injury.”

For more information, call Cyclone Sports Medicine at 294-2626.