I started getting lower back spasms about 7 years ago, some so bad that I was out for weeks. Went to the doctors and Japanese chiropractors, checked it out and it wasn’t a herniated disk: no pain down the leg. Just one muscle in my lower back seizing up, and spreading out from there.
Went to chiro a few times and it would help relax me, but the problem would always eventually return.
Then one day I was snowboarding, hitting bigger jumps with no warm-up, and I could feel my back slowly stiffening up through the day. No sudden muscle seizing like before, but a growing stiffness, until my whole back was pretty much immobile, and stayed like that.
Nothing worked, chiro did nothing. It would get a bit better, but simple movements would trigger back spasms. No skating or snowboarding. Finally after 6 months of this shit, and no improvement, I went to a doctor to see if I need surgery, if it was nerve damage or something.
I work as an instructor in the winter and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to work. So in September I go see the doc, get x-rays, and luckily no nerve damage. So he referred me to a proper sports physio program run in the hospital which I went to for 2 times a week for over year.
And it worked. Turns out years of bad posture (me as a young kid thinking the hunched over skate style was cool) and desk work had my lower back doing all the work supporting my upper body, instead of the stomach muscles helping with that (if you stand up straight)
So from not doing any exercise for over half a year because of my back spasms, my whole body had atrophied, and was a fucking mess. The physiotherapist did a bunch of movement tests on me. Everything was fucked and misaligned, but she figured out what needed to be strengthened first and slowly built up core muscles and then into other connected areas. She saved me.
So in my specific case, it was core, especially stomach muscles. I had to relearn how to engage them during movements, and I’m now, at 45 learning how to stand up like a human. And having to relearn how I stand and crouch on a skateboard and snowboard.
But I’m pain-free, and am pretty much back to where I was pre-pain.