When someone decides to visit the doctor about musculoskeletal pain, back pain is the most common complaint. Sometimes back pain is the result of very specific trauma—a car accident or a slip-and-fall. Other times, however, its causes are much less obvious—cumulative years of poor posture, inactivity or bad nutrition, for example. The rest of this article looks at the role exercise can play in preventing and treating back pain.

The human body is a finely-tuned work of engineering. Throw something out of balance and the body fights to restore that balance. At the same time, the body is also flexible. It adapts to its environment and changes in response to the different types of repetitive stresses placed on it from day to day. That’s why your cardiovascular system becomes more efficient as you walk, run, swim or bike regularly. It’s also why your muscles gain size and endurance from certain types of workouts. 

One of the great challenges faced by many of us who live in four-season climates is how to stay active and get enough healthy exercise once the temperatures start dropping. When it's cold and snowy outside, few of us have the "Just Do It" mentality of Olympic marathoner Joan Benoit, as demonstrated in this famous Nike commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqXPw_6eYZw

Palpation is the most frequently used diagnostic technique in chiropractic care and is a clinical cornerstone of most physicians’ practice. It is a manual, non-invasive method of determining where a patient has structural or functional problems in the body.