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Back Popping – The Good, the Bad, and the Weird

Perhaps you’re familiar with one of the following scenarios…

It’s mid-afternoon, and you’re hard at work at your desk. You’ve been in the flow, and when you finally come up for air, you realize you’ve been hunched over for who-knows-how-long without even realizing it. You put your hands on the armrest of your chair, turn to one side, and your back releases a loud POP.
After a long day of running errands and taking care of some overdue housework—all while feeding, changing, and playing with that tiny bundle of energy that seems to have skipped walking altogether in favor of stumbling like a tiny, inebriated person all over the house—you pull up a yoga video on YouTube and on the very first pose…POP!
You’re halfway through a run when you slow for a moment to tie your shoes. You reach down and…POP!
Whether it’s intentional or not, many of us are familiar with the audible (sometimes very audible) POP or CRRRRACK that results from a stretch or a shift in position. But what causes it? Is it safe? Is it okay to pop your own back?

Read on, friends! We’re here to give you the good, the bad, and the just plain weird about back popping.

What Causes It?
What doesn’t cause it is your joints being put back into place. Your back’s various percussive sound effects might lead one to believe that’s the case—or that perhaps it’s caused by something even more traumatic, like vertebrae knocking against each other. Thankfully, we have spinal discs that prevent this!

We’ll discuss a bit further in “The Weird” section below, but the short answer to what seems to cause the pop is…gas. Somehow, “pop” or “crack” sounds better than “back flatulence,” doesn’t it?

The Good
There’s good news when it comes to popping your back (or having it popped by a professional):

It can feel good! Whether the satisfaction that comes from a good pop is due to a release of endorphins, a placebo effect, or some combination of the two seems to be up for debate.
Generally speaking, it doesn’t hurt anything to crack your back within reason, though this may change as you age and the cartilage in your back begins to wear down. (If you do feel pain, stop popping your back and get it checked out.)
The Bad
There are caveats. (Would you have expected anything different?) Here’s the flip side of the coin:

Popping your back too quickly or too forcefully can cause numerous problems, including pinched nerves and strained/torn muscles.
Over time, cracking your back too frequently can result in permanently stretched ligaments (perpetual instability) that could contribute to osteoarthritis as you age.
Back popping that is too forceful or frequent can injure blood vessels. This could result in serious complications, including dangerous blood clots with possibly life-altering—or even life-threatening—implications (strokes, aneurysms, etc.).
Don’t let anyone who’s not a professional pop your back!
It’s one thing to (carefully) pop your own back via proper stretches and exercises; it’s quite another to entrust your spinal health to someone who doesn’t have the proper training. When you’re doing it yourself, you have the benefit of first-person feedback. In other words, you know your body and you’re familiar with your pain threshold, so you’re less likely to injure yourself.

This feedback isn’t present when you hand over the reins to a friend or acquaintance, even if they swear up and down that they know what they’re doing. If you want someone else to pop your back, make an appointment with a chiropractor or other licensed professional. There’s a reason there’s specialized training for this stuff. Don’t be a cautionary tale.

The Weird
We said we’d circle back to the cause of your back’s various sound effects here, so here we go. Yes, it seems to be caused by gas, but there’s some disagreement as to precisely what’s happening—even though the process has been caught on MRI!

There’s a lubricant in your joints called synovial fluid. It contains various gases—oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide—that provide nutrients to the joints’ cartilage. When the right amount of force is applied to these joints, these gases are released. However, there’s debate about whether it’s the collapse of these gas bubbles that causes the popping sound or if it’s the creation of a gas-filled cavity when the joints stretch that’s responsible for the cracking

With all the advances made in medicine and technology, it’s kind of nice to know there are things about the human body that even the experts scratch their heads and basically say, “Well, we kinda understand sorta what’s happening, but past that…lol, who knows?”

by Brent Hearn

Sources:
SELF: What Happens When You Crack Your Back?

Healthline: What Happens When You Crack Your Back?

The Sydney Morning Herald: Why does back cracking feel so good? The ‘pop’ explained

In the Know: Chiropractor’s Back Cracking TikToks Rack Up Millions

Medical News Today: 6 ways to crack your back

The Skinny on Sciatica

If you’ve ever suffered from sciatica, you know the pain, discomfort, and frustration it can cause. Sciatica can affect people in a variety of ways, but no matter how the pain presents, it can really cramp your style.

What is sciatica?
It may be helpful to start off with what sciatica is not. Sciatica is not a disorder; it’s a set of symptoms.

Sciatica refers to pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling anywhere from the lower back through the buttocks all the way down the leg. The pain can be sharp or dull, and the symptoms may not be consistent. (You could have a stinging sensation on one part of your leg while experiencing numbness in another part.) Symptoms may be experienced at any point on the leg—even down to the sole of the foot—and are usually (but not always) experienced in only one leg.

But what causes it?
Sciatica is usually caused by a compression of the sciatic nerve, which can occur due to a number of different causes—spinal and otherwise—including a herniated disc, misaligned vertebrae, pregnancy, or tumors, just to name a few. (Seriously…there are a lot of possible culprits.) You can even develop sciatica from sitting on your wallet. (Keep it somewhere other than your back pocket, guys!)

Okay, but what is this “sciatic nerve” you’re talking about?
The sciatic nerve is the longest and largest nerve in the human body. It runs all the way from the base of the spine along the back of each leg into the bottom of each foot.

What can bring relief?
In short? It depends. Again, since sciatica refers to a series of symptoms and not a disorder, it’s important to diagnose the underlying cause. Sometimes sciatica gets better on its own; other times, treatment is necessary. There is a wide range of treatments available, including (but not limited to):

back/core exercises
stretching
ice
heat
physical therapy
chiropractic
over-the-counter pain medications
prescription pain medications
muscle relaxers
epidural steroid injections
surgery (usually a last resort)
Tell me more about how chiropractic can help!
In some cases, chiropractic adjustment can help restore mobility to the spine and reduce nerve irritability that’s causing pain, inflammation, muscle spasms, and other symptoms associated with sciatica.

There are additional benefits of seeing a chiropractor for sciatica. If chiropractic can relieve your particular symptoms without the need for medication, you can bypass the possible side effects of said medications. And since you don’t need a referral to see a chiropractor, you can “cut out the middleman,” as it were.

If your sciatica pain falls outside the bounds of your chiropractor’s expertise, they should be able to point you in the direction of a provider who can help.

by Brent Hearn

Sources:
Cleveland Clinic: Hands-On Help: How a Chiropractor Can Provide Lower Back or Sciatica Pain Relief

Cleveland Clinic: Sciatica

Health Central: What to Know About Chiropractic Treatment of Sciatica

healthline: Why is My Sciatica Not Going Away?

Penn Medicine: Sciatica

Reuters: Chiropractic Care May Ease Back-Related Leg Pain

Spine-Heath: Sciatic Nerve Anatomy

Posture Check!

Okay, class…quiz time! Yes, you can use your notes. No, this won’t count toward your daily average. Yes, Timmy, you can go to the restroom. Right after you take this quiz.

Don’t sweat it; this one is pretty easy. Just answer the following questions. (Silently, Timmy.)

Do you sometimes feel off-balance while standing?
Bring yourself to your full height right now. How much adjustment did that require?
Do you find yourself slumping, slouching, or otherwise leaning in a way that might lead to your being cast in a 90s alternative band’s music video?
Do you experience frequent flashbacks of your mother admonishing you to Stand up straight, Timothy!? (Sorry to pick on you today, Timmy. Maybe if you showed up on time for class on any day that doesn’t involve a field trip…)
Do you suffer from otherwise unexplained back or neck pain?
Have you recently been offered a bell-ringing position at a French cathedral?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, your posture may need an overhaul. We’ve talked about good “office job” posture in “Watch Your Back…at Work” and doled out a few helpful posture tips for kids in “Neck and Back Health: Is Your Child Making the Grade?” but today we’re going to focus solely on standing posture.

Quite a bit goes into developing and maintaining good posture, so we’re going to try to keep things simple. It may be helpful for us to focus on three particular aspects of posture: strength, balance, and alignment.

Strength
Your core strength both affects your posture and is affected by your posture. Weak leg muscles can negatively impact your balance. Weak or fatigued muscles in your core—those in your belly, back, sides, pelvis, and butt—can lead to slumping. And said slumping can contribute to fragility in your spine, making it more prone to injury. It’s easy to see how a poor-posture cycle can be perpetuated.

Strengthening these muscles can help put an end to that cycle. You don’t have to become a gym rat; whether you’re young, older, or somewhere in between, your posture can likely benefit from manageable, consistent strength training. Consult a doctor or physical therapist to develop a routine appropriate to your current fitness level.

Balance
Your shoulders should be even. Your elbows should be even. And your hips? You guessed it: even. Think about keeping your feet at shoulder-width apart while standing, with your weight evenly distributed between both feet. And remember when we talked about slumping? That can tip you forward, throwing you off balance.

This is a great time to point out something you may have already picked up on: The aspects of posture we’re discussing don’t exist in a vacuum. Strength, balance, and (spoiler!) alignment—are all interconnected. Making positive changes in one area can pay dividends elsewhere.

Alignment
There’s more to alignment than simply standing up straight. (According to some experts, “standing up straight” is overly simplistic; there’s not a one-size-fits-all metric for good posture.)

That said, there are some good guidelines to follow when it comes to proper alignment:

Keep your head centered above your pelvis and your feet. (If you’re hunching over to stare at your phone, that’s the polar opposite of what we’re going for here. Fight the text neck!)
Your ears should be over your shoulders—not jutting out in front of them.
Your ankles should be directly below your hips; this helps you maintain your balance. (There’s that interconnectivity we talked about earlier.)
As you can see, it can be a lot to think about. (And there’s more.) If you’re the type of person who loves a checklist to work from, check out this article from AARP to help you assess and improve your alignment.

by Brent Hearn

Sources:
AARP: Stand Up Straight: How to Improve Your Posture

Harvard Health Publishing: Why Good Posture Matters

HuffPost: Standing Up Straight Might Not Be as Beneficial as We Thought

Mayo Clinic: Good Posture Tips