Steel and back problems

[Ethan Vivian]

Hi everyone. I broke my back in a car accident a few years ago. Made a full recovery, but sitting still causes me pain, especially under the shoulder blades. The chiropractor and exercise helps, but sitting behind the steel for long periods has started to bother me again. As many players as are on here and with as good as our steel community is, I know some of you have some solutions that may help me out. What have some of you guys with back problems done to make playing easier on you? Thanks everyone

[Roy Carroll]

Hi Ethan,
You can improve your posture by sitting up straighter at the guitar. Hunched over is not a good posture. Check the BIG "E", he always sits almost straight up.
Also get a stool that has a back and every so often, lean back against the back to relieve your back muscles.
That's my 2 cents. Good luck.

[Dale Rivard]

Hi Ethan, In addition to Roy's great suggestions I would also say, make sure your set up is ergonomically correct to begin with. That is, your thighs are level to the ground and your arms are level to the guitar(strings). As well, take breaks often, using the time to stand and stretch.

[Samuel Phillippe]

I use an leather office chair (@home) and use the back for support.
When playing out I take Ibriprophone(??) thst dsometimes help.

Sam

[Ethan Vivian]

Thanks guys

[John Hyland]

One thing which often isn’t considered when sitting is how the lower arm position affects the position of the shoulders. In a normal chair with arms you find that your shoulders become raised. This is not good. Of course most pedal steel chairs don’t have arms but the height of the steel may lift the lower arms higher than is ergonomically best. So maybe a higher chair might help you although this may cause issues with your playing style.

[Slim Heilpern]

Probably important to also work on posture the rest of the time when you're not playing steel.

I found this book to be quite helpful:

"8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back" by Esther Gokale

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/09793 ... UTF8&psc=1

- Slim

[Larry Ball]

All the above are good suggestions, so my two cents would be buy a good back support (Eg: Home Deport sells them for heavy lifting). I bought one and it does wonders for me as it keeps your back straight .

[Webb Kline]

I can't speak for every situation, because there are a lot of things that cause back pain. But my chiropractor up near our camp in NY told me 4 years ago, "If you just started walking, find some good hills to climb or find some machines at a gym to strengthen your lower back muscles, you wouldn't need a chiropractor anymore."

I took him at his word, left his office, drove down to the outfitters and bought myself a good pair of hiking boots and started walking. When I got home, I decided to start climbing a steep hill near my home every morning. To be honest, I would wake up in pain and not want to go out, but I made myself do it. I'd get about two thirds of the way up that hil and the pain would go away fro the rest of the day. Next morning, same thing. Could hardly get out of bed, but made myself do it. After about three weeks, I got about two thirds of the way up that hill, and the pain left me and it never came back.

I lost 50 pounds, and I feel better at 67 than I felt when i was half my age, and can hike a lot longer and farther. It's addictive. I hike about 1500 miles a year now.

Same thing can be said for my arthritic thumb.I did get a shot of cortisone for it, but then rather than using the excuse that it was too painful to play steel, I started playing more. I play for an hour every day, and sometimes on the weekends, I'll play for 4 or 5 hours at a time. No hand pain, no back pain. I can't say it will work for everyone, but my guess it will work for a lot of folks.

The one thing that doc told me that I never gave much thought about before is that the back can't support itself without muscle. I'd been a logger for quite a few years, and I had a strong back, but then I started driving truck and lost those muscles, and now that I'm older, that muscle mass deterioraites to almost nothing, and I discovered that i have to keep it up. I need those muscles in my core to keep my back strong. We can fix a lot (not all) things without meds and we're better off for it whenever we can.

[Roger Rettig]

Just a word of warning about Ibuprofen; yes, it works as a painkiller but take from someone who's resigned to hemodialysis for his remaining years - it's a kidney-killer, too.

My renal failure was due to hypertension and diabetes but the moment my renal numbers started to go awry, I was told emphatically to avoid Ibuprofen.

Acetaminophen is far preferable