60 Year Old Triathlete Seeks Lower Back Pain Relief

Question: I am a 60 yr old triathlete who ALWAYS has a problem with lower back/hips/shoulders, etc. I am currently seeing a massage therapist, who seems to have gotten a hold on my pain issues. Both the light/eye test and the blood pressure test were negative. Should I still do the supplements and watch my sugar intake?

First of all, I highly recommend giving up sugar all together. I always do. It’s the major contributer to aging and all major health issues. And, it takes a worse toll the older we get. The thing that you have going for you though is that your exercise.

When blood sugar is high, like after eating any sugar at all, insulin goes up to bring the high blood sugar down. High insulin this one of the main causes of many diseases. I could go on and on about what high insulin does to the body. One is that it pushes a lot of the sugar to the muscles. If you workout not too long after sugar or processed foods, then that sugar is burned off. But, muscles burning sugar (anaerobic – without oxygen) get a lot more sore than muscles burning fat (aerobic – with oxygen).

Since you are an athlete, and you passed the two adrenal test, then the adrenals are not likely to be your issue. My next suspect would be tight muscles, though there are other possibilities.

For people with good adrenal glands, lower back pain relief can still be found.

With the lower back it is likely the psoas muscle that is tight. It is the deepest muscle in the body running from the inside of the lower back diagonally to the hip and down to the inside of the upper thigh bone. When this muscle is tight, it will pull the lower back forward increasing the arch in the lower back. If rounding the back makes it feel considerably better, then I would do some pressure point release on the psoas and see if that gives you relief.

Here is a video on how to do this massage. It is demonstrated on someone, but it is possible to do it on yourself.

Psoas Massage/Release for Lower Back Pain Relief from Kalidasa Brown on Vimeo.

While this is the most likely the cause of your back pain, there are other possible causes. You can find 40 causes of back pain here, but even that list is incomplete. I hope you can find the issue and find real back pain relief soon. And, I wish I could see you in person, so far I have been able to eliminate back pain for every client I have ever had. Maybe I just haven’t gotten a tough case yet.