713. In this episode from last April, Kevin explores how our evolution from quadrupeds to bipeds may be the root cause of chronic back pain. He shares his own injury experience and examines how our spine’s design, combined with modern habits like prolonged sitting, contributes to discomfort, plus tips to keep your back healthy.
713. In this episode from last April, Kevin explores how our evolution from quadrupeds to bipeds may be the root cause of chronic back pain. He shares his own injury experience and examines how our spine’s design, combined with modern habits like prolonged sitting, contributes to discomfort, plus tips to keep your back healthy.
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Hello listeners, I hope everyone is doing well this week. As is very often the case, I will kick this episode off with a personal anecdote. Two years ago in April, I had a sport specific injury doing judo training. A beginner did something that was very unexpected and not allowed, hence why it was unexpected. They ‘stacked’ me, as we would say, onto my own neck, which is about as comfortable as it sounds. There was a crunching sound, and my arm went totally limp, and I could not raise it.
So, I used my judo belt as a make shift sling and took myself off to the hospital. I was put in a neck brace and went through a period of forced meditation because I was lying flat on my back, completely immobile and staring at the ceiling for 3 hours. I then had an MRI scan. After this, I went off home in my neck brace. A few weeks later, there was no word from the hospital, the pian had subsided, and I went back to training: judo, karate, some kickboxing and so on.
During this time, I developed what has now become a permanent tingling and numbness, a bit of pins and needles, down my small finger and ring finger in my hand and cannot turn my head to one side because it feels like something ‘blocked’ inside. I have also had bouts of dizziness, and as I'm walking from time to time, will suddenly start drifting to one side and find it really hard to bring myself back to walking straight, as well as having the worst possible toothache you can ever imagine.
Last week, I received a phone call from the hospital. Two years after my MRI to ask if I could go in to see the spinal specialist right now. And I thought, that's curious. Hospitals don't normally call you up and say come over immediately. But I suspect as well since this has taken two years, that somewhere along the line, they lost my MRI and just found it. So, off I went to the hospital. I met with the consultant, and he showed me my MRI, showed that 4 of my cervical vertebrates, the ones in my neck, were a different colour from all the others, and that showed damaged to the vertebrae. And of those 4 vertebrates, 2 of them had herniated discs in my neck, which it appeared on the MRI. And he zoomed it in that they were so badly herniated, that they were actually touching my spinal cord.
He said this was the cause of my tingling, my inability to move my neck and my episodes of dizziness. Basically it's some nerve problems in there. He booked me in for another MRI and physiotherapy and said that depending on the next MRI, I may need surgery to my neck. So very exciting times!
But, although it is what we call in the philosophy of science, ‘inference to best explanation’ that this was caused by a sport injury. It's also possible that the discs in my neck were herniated.
So, what's the deal with this? Why would I have herniated disks in my neck irrespective of the sport? And why is it as we get older, so many people begin to report chronic neck and back pain? Both of these are originating in the spine, so what's the deal? Why would a spine be the cause for more chronic pain than anything else? It certainly has led to a whole industry, pseudoscientific and otherwise, dealing with back pain. You can go out and buy special chairs, pillows, special shoes, braces, devices to lie on, tables you can flip yourself upside down on, training protocols and physical therapists that will insist your glutes aren’t ‘firing’ or your core isn’t engaging. But could there be an anatomical cause? One that lies in our evolutionary biological history?
Some scientists seem to think so…they think we suffer from back pain because we’re walking around in bodies that were not designed for upright living. Our spines evolved for life as quadrupeds—walking on all fours—and not for the upright, bipedal life we now lead.
To really understand why our backs are giving us such a hard time, we’ve got to go back about 7 million years. At this point in time, our earliest ancestors, currently considered to be Sahelanthropus, were our first quadruped ancestors that moved to bipedal living. Possible reasons are an enhanced ability to spot predators . It was around this time that humans began to move from forests and into grassland, which required you see over the grass to see if predators were coming. That's around the time humans began to develop language for communicating about the potential approach of predators. It also makes it much easier if you are standing up right to reach berries and fruits and so on that are perhaps out of reach, if you're on all fours.
Although this ancestor, considered to be the closest humans were to the common ape ancestor was shifting to a bipedal life, its body was still that of a quadruped. Their spines were evolved only for that. Bipedalism was perhaps better for traits advantageous to survival, but not best for purpose because the spines were adapted to distribute load in a quadruped position. In one position, when you're walking on all fours, the spine is close to horizontal, like a suspension bridge. And now we have flipped it vertically. So instead of being loaded horizontally, it's now being loaded top down, like a skyscraper. Both these structures are able to support huge amounts of load. However, they are designed for different purposes. If you try to flip a suspension bridge vertically and then load it top down, it would be no surprise if it suffered a structural failure? Likewise if you flipped a skyscraper on it side and then load it horizontally, it might be no surprise if it broke in the middle.
So when our ancestors shifted to walking upright, their spines underwent several major changes, as they had to adapt to this and not all of these were actually beneficial.
If you look at a human spine, it’s shaped like an “S.” This curve helps balance our weight over the middle of our feet, which is crucial for staying upright. If your weight shifts over your toes, you fall forward. If your weight shifts over your heels, you fall backwards. But this S-shape is also inherently unstable and prone to problems. In quadrupeds, the spine is more like a gentle arch, distributing weight evenly. But when you tilt that structure upright, gravity starts pulling down on different parts of the spine in ways that cause wear and tear over time. This is could explain herniated discs, sciatica, and all sorts of lower back issues.
The biggest problem area for most people. The lumbar spine, the lower part of the back, takes most of the load when we're walking, running, or even just standing. Because of the curvature of the lumbar spine, it’s constantly under pressure, and that pressure can lead to degeneration of the discs between the vertebrae. This is why lower back pain is by far the most common type of back pain because our lumbar spines weren’t built to handle vertical load over a lifetime, especially if we consider modern human lifespans vs our ancestors.
Another adaptation from bipedalism was a change in the shape and orientation of the pelvis. Our pelvis had to widen and tilt forward to support our upright posture. But this change also tightened and shortened the muscles in our lower backs and hamstrings, making us more prone to strain and stiffness. Tightness in your lower back after a long day of sitting? Blame your pelvis—it’s trying to stabilise a structure that wasn’t originally designed for this purpose at all.
Okay, so evolution may have left us with a spine not meant for bipedal life or modern life, which has turned that into a bit of a disaster. Because we no longer spend our days hunting, gathering, by walking around, getting into various positions. We spend our days sitting at desks, hunched over laptops, and slouching on sofas. None of this is good for your body. In fact, sitting is arguably the worst thing we do to our spines. When we sit for long periods, the natural curve of the lumbar spine flattens out, putting extra pressure on the discs. This compresses the spine down and strains the surrounding muscles, which can lead to chronic pain.
Then there’s ‘tech neck’, a modern condition of technology where we're looking down a lot at our phones or computers. The human head weighs about 10 to 12 pounds, but when you tilt it forward to look at a device, you're moving the load away from the center of mass, which makes it feel heavier. Because it's farther away from where your balance point is. So you're taking something that weighs 10 pounds and turning it something that weights about 60 pounds. This brings a lot of strain to our neck.
So we’re stuck with this problematic spine due to our common ancestors, but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to suffer forever! There are indeed things we can do to mitigate the effects of our evolutionary design:
Move More, Sit Less! The more we move, the happier our spines are and joints. Frequent movement helps lubricate the discs, strengthen core muscles, and improve flexibility. If you have a desk job, try to stand up, stretch, or walk around every 30-60 minutes. You might even look into a standing desk!
A strong core is essential for spinal stability. Something physical therapists have got right for sure. Planks, bridges, and other core-strengthening exercises can help take some of the load off your lumbar spine.
To conclude this week: our backbones are a relic of a quadruped based past. They have just been retrofitted for life as a biped. Whilst it is definitely a flawed design, we can do things to keep our spines more healthy. More movement and core strengthening and maybe even thinking about not slouching over devices. And these things might be a more attractive proposition than us going back to living as a knuckle-dragging quadruped.
I hope everyone has a great week. If you want to send me an email, then please do so at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com.
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thank you to that team: Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, the director of podcasts, Brennan Goetschius, and Davina Tomlin. If you have a question, you can also voicemail me at 510-353-3104 or send me an email at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com. Visit quickanddirtytips.com, or check out the shownotes in your podcast app