Why to avoid lifting first thing in the morning

In keep with the theme of back pain, and this week we are going to discuss why you should avoid lifting in the first hour after waking.

Spinal intervertebral discs are kind of like sponges. When we lie down at night, the discs soak up water and become thicker, (that is why most people are 1-2 cm taller in the morning) however, once we get up and stay vertical throughout the day the extra water gets squeezed out and the discs become thinner again. Every day the cycle repeats itself. Because the intervertebral discs are thicker in the morning, the pressure inside the disc is greater, which for those with damaged or unhealthy discs is bad news, as it commonly results in greater back pain. However, one hour after rising, the spinal discs have lost 90% of the thickness they gained overnight, and back pain sufferers gain some relief.

This information is useful if you plan on working out first thing in the morning, or if your job requires heavy or repetitive lifting soon after waking. Why? Because if the spinal discs are thicker this causes an increase in intradiscal pressure, which in turn causes further low back compression and commonly results in increased low back pain. If this is the case for you, there is a simple solution. Simply wake up at least an hour before you begin any manual tasks or exercise. This will save your spinal discs a lot of unnecessary stress and strain, and may even prevent unnecessary low back pain.

It is important to note that once an intervertebral disc is damaged it will remain damaged, nevertheless, the good news is that this does not mean the disc will forever be painful. Many studies have shown that damaged intervertebral discs on radiological imaging do not always correlate with back pain symptoms. One study had radiologists look at patients spinal imaging results and guess which patients were suffering from back pain from those without back pain. The result was that the radiologists’ guesses were no better than chance. What does this mean? It means radiologist cannot tell whether you have back pain solely based on a radiological image.  

So, remember that you can avoid or at least diminish further negative effects on the spine by simply avoiding heavy lifting within the first hour after waking up or after lying down for a prolonged amount of time. This little change can significantly improve one’s back pain symptoms.

Yours in health,

Adam