Finding the best athletic shoes or running shoes for lower back pain can be, well, painful.
There are a lot of options to choose from but how can you know you're getting the absolute best?
Well there are a few key things you should look for in athletic shoes to deal with your lower back pain:
Rethinking Lower Back Pain
With over half of Americans dealing with chronic lower back pain, it’s time to look at the issue in another light.
As we often experience lower back pain in a moment, doing some activity, we assume it’s that activity that caused the pain - that we must avoid that activity.
However, this is usually not the case. In fact, much of the time we strain our back or find our lower back aching, it was the result of built up tension in our hip flexors rather than a one-off moment that caused our pain.
Don't Avoid Movements to Be Pain Free...
You see, with everyday movements and postures, from sitting or lying to standing or running, we often times lose alignment as we fail to engage our hip flexors and lack the stability we need for optimal health - including freedom from nagging lower back pain.
Looking at our feet as the stabilizing structures of our body, we start to see the importance of keeping everything aligned as it should be for proper, pain-free movement.
Choosing shoes that support proper stabilization, whether it be for walking, running, hiking, or tennis, is key to finding the best athletic shoes for lower back pain, specifically.
You must stress support for your arch, heel, and ankle - things that most commonly lead to instability and misalignment.
More Than Just Your Feet
You must take the structural integrity of your feet and hip flexors seriously in the search for the best athletic shoes if you really wish to avoid lower back pain.
You can head into your local shoe store in hopes of finding athletic shoes for lower back pain but "needs-based shoes" are much harder to come by in general stores than other places that specialize in such needs.
For each of these crucial factors, my readers voted Brooks Addiction 12 to be the most helpful and all around best athletic shoes for lower back pain.
Coming in 2nd were the New Balance Men's M1540V2 Optimum Control Athletic Shoes - which I have found to be a great substitute if you can’t get you hands on a pair of Brooks Addiction.
Aside from taking control of your hip flexors with the program that literally changed my life, choosing one of the specially designed pairs mentioned above is the best start in finding freedom from chronic lower back pain.
Good luck and stay optimal my friends :)