Back Pain Blog Posts


Sitting with Sciatic Pain or Back Pain

May 1, 2012
Sitting seems to be a fairly innocuous activity on the surface of things but, it turns out, it’s much more difficult than you might think. When sitting, the assumption is that our muscles are relaxing. But I’ve been finding that is not the case. When we sit down on a firm chair, we feel our [...]
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The Obliques and Back Pain

July 22, 2011
This past year I’ve been exploring the role of the internal and external obliques in back pain. I believe it’s significant. Both sets of muscles work together to flex and rotate our spine. In many people with chronic back pain, these muscles have become chronically contracted on one or both sides. I think this contri
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Searching for Answers…

May 20, 2011
Every time I feel I’ve got a particular issue figured out, someone comes along with a new twist! In the case of back and pelvic pain, I’ve noticed lately there seems to be a pattern of over-recruited adductors that is linked to chronically short or contracted hip flexors. If you’ve read any of my books, [...]
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Spine Surgeries on the Rise

February 16, 2011
Just read an interesting article in Wall Street Journal. It talked about how more complicated spine surgeries for stenosis are on the rise in spite of lack of evidence as to their effectiveness. I can’t really speak about whether or not more complicated surgeries are warranted. I’m sure in some cases they are. What I
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Holistic Success and Back Pain

August 14, 2010
Earlier this summer I flew out to California to be interviewed about back pain on The Holistic Success Show. I had a wonderful time meeting Dr. Puff, Elizabeth, and the crew. They really made me feel at home. Feel free to check out Episode 38 if you’d like to hear me speak about back pain. [...]
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The Pelvis and Sciatic Pain

April 10, 2010
Sciatic pain is almost as ubiquitous as back pain in our culture. As with most chronic pain conditions, I’ve found sciatic pain to be a problem in people’s habits such as sitting or sleeping postures as well as anatomical issues such as tight muscles in the front of the pelvis or weak muscles in the [...]
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Making Back Pain a Habit

March 25, 2010
I recently saw a woman who had a history of sharp stabbing back pain for about 40 years. I performed my evaluation and gave her the exercises to correct the issues I found. She felt relief but still had occasional stabbing pain. I asked her when this happened and she told me it was after [...]
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Rick Olderman Audio Interview About Back Pain

March 17, 2010
I just had a fun interview with Ruhe Fitness who is doing an audio series about back pain.  You can check it out at this link if you’re interested. http://ruhefitness.audioacrobat.com/download/RickOlderman-FixingYou_net.mp3
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Back Pain: The Edge of Healing

March 4, 2010
I’ve had several emails from people who have purchased my book on back pain. They’ve written me to say they have identified the cause of their pain and are just beginning to fix themselves. This alone has been a huge weight lifted from their shoulders after hearing multitudes of diagnoses and theories from specialist
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Can Back Pain be Helped Using Pilates & Yoga?

February 23, 2010
Back pain, like other areas of chronic pain in the body, is really the result of poor movement habits. These movement habits though, are often accompanied by anatomical and biomechanical problems feeding, and fed by, these movement habits. This creates a cycle of chronic pain that needs to be broken at these three levels. If [..
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