A new scientific study confirms that wearing “rock bottom shoes” (“Rock Bottom Shoes”) reduces low intensity back pain in chronic low back pain. Wearing these convex-soled shoes for several hours a day would improve the curvature of the back and reduce moderate chronic pain.
Researchers from Valencia’s CEU Cardenal Herrera university have confirmed, thanks to a new study on back pain, that shoes with unstable soles (convex soles) strengthen the back muscles, making it possible to reduce chronic low back pain of low intensity, very disabling for those who suffer from it.
Low back pain, which refers to pain in the lower lumbar region, affects 80% of French people at least once in their life. The causes of low back pain – stress, lumbago, osteoarthritis, fracture, fibromyalgia, herniated disc, infection – are multiple and make it one of the main reasons for consultation in medical clinics.
But a recent CNAM campaign recently insisted on the value of having a muscular back to fight back pain.
“Sick of #back ? The right treatment is movement “: back pain is on the campaign trail https://t.co/HlL1f4gu8J #lebonmouvement pic.twitter.com/J7Ubrp7CsM
– Health Insurance (@ameli_actu) March 1, 2018
Strengthen the back muscles
“Patients with chronic low back pain are usually encouraged to do exercises to strengthen the muscles in their backs, which improves the stability of the spine in the lower back.
This new study shows that the use of shoes with unstable soles (“Rock bottom shoes”) for several hours, without other exercises, makes it possible to strengthen the back effectively. Strengthening the back improves the curvature of the spine in the lumbar region, thereby helping to reduce chronic pain, ”explains Pablo Salvator, author of the study published in the magazine Clinical Rehabilitation.
Forty patients suffering from low-intensity chronic low back pain took part in Pablo Salvator’s study, which had already obtained results on the same type of problem in previous research. Half of them wore shoes with convex soles for four weeks, while the other half wore shoes with normal soles.
Several hours a day
In particular, the team of researchers evaluated the degree of curvature of the lower part of the spine in patients who wore bulging soles and in those who did not, and then crossed these results with the degree of pain expressed by all patients via the Roland-Morris Disability questionnaire.
The results “allowed us to confirm that the daily use of rocking shoes for several hours a day reduced the handicap of people suffering from chronic low back pain”, concludes scientist Pablo Salvator. Next step for the researchers: to carry out a similar study by increasing the number of patients studied and the timescale, in order to confirm these results.
.
