A young general practitioner pointed out the swayback curvature of my spine during a routine check-up. He said it may lead to back issues as I got older. I was 35 at the time and didn’t really appreciate that piece of data. Why worry about something that could be a possibility only years later? I was in the beginning throes of a painful divorce and was trying to entertain only positive thinking. Yet the seed from the doctor had been planted.

Should I look to my parents to guide my beliefs?

My parents both complained about back pain when they got older. My father suffered from chronic lower back pain. It was so bad that he was not able to stand fully upright once he approached his 80s. He started using a cane to walk before moving on to a rollator walker. I would catch my mother holding her hand against her back as if to protect it while she walked. Neither one of my two brothers ever mentioned back pain.

Accepting misguided beliefs without challenging them

I was 38 when I had anything resembling back pain. I had finished a 3-mile walk around a reservoir when I felt an angry tightness in my lower back. I held a couple of squatting poses to try to stretch my back, but the release was barely temporary. I wondered to myself if the back issue the doctor mentioned was now beginning.

Over the years I would come to have some back pain from time to time. But the incidents were always self-inflicted on my part. Sleeping on a bed with little or no spinal support. Having poor form while doing ab workouts with weights. Letting my hip flexors and hamstrings get so tight after indoor cycling that they caused strain on my lower back. Still, I was not aware that I had any control over the pain, so I didn’t try to challenge it. Episodes of soreness would then linger for days.

It’s hard to believe it took me so long to understand the connection between tight muscles and pain. It’s really no surprise, though. I never had the patience to stretch properly. Stretching bored me. Once my workout was done, I was always eager to move on with my day. I tended to rush through the stretching and stop the poses just as I hit a feeling of discomfort. So, I simply accepted the outcomes of my pathetic stretching habits.

Tight hamstrings ended my decades-long running pursuit. Whenever I set out to run in my late 50s, my hamstring would feel as if it were locking up. Sure, I tried to stretch that hamstring. But I did not do the research to learn how to stretch. Instead, I attributed it to aging and the misguided belief that there was nothing I could do to change it.

Breaking through those beliefs

This past year I developed a routine of indoor cycling 5-6 times a week for 50-60 minutes. During this time, I also became more consistent with my yoga practice. This helped me understand muscles are connected, and lower back pain could be caused by tight hamstrings and hip flexors.

How I broke through my beliefs about pain

I was doing more yoga, but not enough to resolve the mild lower back pain that would routinely hit me. Then one morning I was stretching after a 60-minute indoor cycle and caught myself flaking out on a hamstring stretch. Once I hit the point of what yoga instructors call “sensation”, I was ready to move on to avoid it. But this time I pushed myself a couple of extra minutes to get a thorough hamstring stretch.

I hadn’t given the stretching another thought until later that night. It suddenly dawned on me that I had absolutely no back pain. Zero. Nada. I knew right then that my often-nagging lower back pain was not old age setting in. Doing the work to stretch properly had enabled me to break through that belief. I was not destined to live with back pain.

I have had a few indoor cycle sessions followed by proper stretches since then. Still no lower back issues. Sure, I’ve felt a momentary tight spot here and there. But now I move my back in a way that feels restorative, and the tightness goes away.

My takeaway

For years I let the doctor’s warning define the expectations I had of my physical body. It took me awhile, but by finally listening to my body, I was led to the truth.

Listen to the truth comes which comes from within. Don’t give more authority to an external source that doesn’t know you like you know yourself.