Gaining strength / muscle mass and losing fat can help for many kinds of pain. My father had back pain for something like 20 years. He worked an office job and was 20-30 lbs overweight. After he started working out again, jogging on his lunch breaks, and lost the weight his back pain went away.

Word. I got hit by a car while biking 7 years ago and had all sorts of back problems afterwards. It wasn't like a sharp pain, but my back was always very tense and ache-y.

What has really helped me is doing handstand-pushups. You do a handstand against a wall, and then do a push up, lowering your head towards the floor. It really engages all the muscles in the shoulders/back. You'll probably start off by just doing a handstand and then go from there slowly. Once you are a bit more confident you can also arch your back away from the wall engaging muscles lower in your back.

Just like with any exercise, don't push yourself too much and make sure to keep proper form.

> Active Release Therapy - this broke up scar tissue that I had, may not be applicable to you

If this is comparable to the Graston technique, I think it works well, but it is far from comfortable. I had this after surgery for my Achilles rupture and it felt someone was carving my achilles out with a dull butter knife.

Yes, that's roughly what it feels like. Bruised the hell out of me. That said, it's reduced my neuropathy and pain by at least 90% - I had tennis elbow badly enough it was starting to affect sensation in my hands.

I highly recommend active release therapy to treat muscle and joint pain.

You responded to:

  | This worked for me, I'm going to tell you
  | because it might help you too.

with:

  | what a load of balls...

and

  | neckbeard lifting gurus are so full of shit

Way to keep it classy.

This is really a case of 'your mileage may vary'. Some people's problems will be fixed by a bit of exercise, some won't. This is true whether or not you can pull 350 or 530, and/or do chins. As an old man by gym standards, I have both been broken and fixed by lifting weights, in different places.

The most treacherous thing about this is that lifting weights (with a good warmup) often makes pain go away in a temporary fashion (while you're doing it), only to return big-time when your joints aren't all nicely lubed up.

Aside from the troll content here, you do have to be careful if you have e.g. spinal issues. Nerve damage can make even light exercise excruciating. I had to build back up carefully, never hyperextending, always keeping good posture, using light or (usually) no weight, focusing on weakened muscle groups, and never going to exhaustion, all of which is rather boring but was completely necessary. I do find that regular exercise helps with my neck and back pain, but it is certainly not a cure-all, and I worked out regularly before the pain started and definitely cannot do that type of workout any more. I've put back on about 15 pounds of muscle mass, but it's taken over a year of diligent work. On the plus side, my muscle tone is much better than it ever was from previous workout routines.

Hi, do you mind crawling back under this rock I'm holding up for you? It's at least 350lbs so is getting kind of heavy.

Do you even lift?