A 30 minute Back Assessment with an accredited exercise physiologist in Epping.
Prefer to talk? Call 03 7047 6261
Epping clinic · Accredited clinicians · Book online in a minute
If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone, and it is very common at this stage of life to feel this way.
Lower back pain is rarely about one single injury. More often, it is about load versus capacity, in plain English, how much your back is being asked to do compared with what it is currently able to handle. When the demands of work, lifting, sitting or driving outstrip what your back and the muscles around it can cope with, pain is often the signal.
Long periods of sitting, whether at a desk or behind the wheel, tend to stiffen the muscles and joints around the spine. When you then stand up and load that stiff area, it can feel sharp or seized, even if nothing has been damaged.
Pain also tends to linger when activity becomes uneven, pushing through on good days and avoiding movement on bad ones. This stop-start pattern can mean the back never gets the steady, gradual loading it needs to rebuild capacity, so the same triggers, like lifting the shopping or a long car trip, keep catching it out.
None of this means something is seriously wrong. It usually means your back's current capacity has not yet caught up with what your daily life is asking of it, and that is something that can be worked on.
We build plans from the evidence, not guesswork. Here is some of it.
Exercise therapy was more effective than no treatment or usual care for reducing pain in chronic low back pain, with clinically meaningful differences at earliest follow-up.
Hayden et al. (2021). Exercise therapy for chronic low back pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. PubMed 34580864Current clinical guidelines recommend avoiding bed rest and advising return to normal activities for acute low back pain, alongside reassurance and medication where needed.
Oliveira et al. (2018). Clinical practice guidelines for the management of non-specific low back pain in primary care: an updated overview. Eur Spine J. PubMed 29971708A clinical practice guideline recommends exercise and multidisciplinary rehabilitation for chronic low back pain based on moderate-quality evidence.
Qaseem et al. (2017). Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. PubMed 28192789Sedentary behaviour, particularly prolonged sitting and driving time, was associated with increased low back pain risk in office workers.
Baradaran Mahdavi et al. (2021). Association between sedentary behavior and low back pain; A systematic review and meta-analysis. Health Promot Perspect. PubMed 35079583Research summaries are general information, not advice about your situation. Your assessment is what tells us what applies to you.
Rest can take the edge off a flare, but the back is built to move and load. Long periods of avoiding movement often let the muscles around the spine lose condition, so the next lift or long drive catches you out again.
A printed sheet of stretches can help short term, but it is not built around your job, your car, your lifting patterns or how your back actually responds under load. Without checking how you tolerate load and progressing it, the same triggers keep tripping the same flare.
Where you feel it is not always where the problem starts. Hips, thighs and the way you move through the day all feed into how your lower back copes. Working on the painful area alone can miss the parts that are actually running out of capacity.
Pushing hard on the good days and doing nothing on the bad ones keeps your back guessing. Without a steady, planned build-up in what it can handle, capacity never really climbs, so the same jobs keep feeling like a risk.
We start by talking through your history, when it started, what makes it worse, and what it is getting in the way of, whether that is work, driving or lifting the kids.
Your exercise physiologist checks how your back, hips and legs move and load, including things like bending, lifting and getting up from a chair, to see where capacity is being tested.
We explain what we found in plain language and outline your options, whether that is a home program, ongoing sessions, or simply reassurance about what is safe to do.
If you are not sure whether this applies to you, come in and we will work it out together.
Answer a few quick questions and we will get in touch to book you in.
Accredited clinicians who will explain everything in plain language.
No. You can book the $79 Back Assessment directly, no GP referral needed. If you have an NDIS plan or DVA card, let us know when you book as different arrangements may apply.
Comfortable clothes you can move in. Think what you would wear to go for a walk. We may ask you to bend, reach or lift lightly during the assessment.
The assessment runs for 30 minutes. That includes talking through your history, a movement assessment, and time at the end to explain what we found and what your options are.
Many private health funds offer rebates for exercise physiology under extras cover. Check your policy for exercise physiology or EP rebates, and bring your card so we can process it on the spot if you have HICAPS.
Come in anyway. A flare can actually give us useful information about what is triggering it. We will keep the assessment gentle and work within what your back can tolerate on the day.
For most lower back pain, appropriate movement is safe and is part of how you build capacity back up. We assess your specific situation first and build any plan around what you can currently manage.
Yes, there is parking available on site at Unit 11, 58 Willandra Drive, Epping.
You will leave with a clear picture of what is driving your back pain and what your options are. If ongoing exercise physiology support suits you, we will talk through what that could look like, with no pressure to book anything further.
Book a 30 minute Back Assessment with an accredited exercise physiologist at our Epping clinic and find out what is really going on.
Prefer to talk? Call 03 7047 6261.