Back Pain: Physiotherapy, Pilates, Exercise and Education

Throughout this course, you will be taken on a journey of discovery, of education, and exercise to begin managing, relieving, and hopefully, resolving your back pain. Your instructors Luke, and Matt, are experienced UK based Physiotherapists working in musculoskeletal practice in academic, primary care, secondary care and sport settings.

Luke and Matt are extremely passionate about helping people overcome pain, and despite having a presence in UK clinical practice, wanted to create something with a wider reach. This course was created to condense years of clinical practice into an online resource to help people around the world who are suffering from back pain. A course which debunks some of the unhelpful misinformation about back pain, which is based on evidence, which is safe for people to take part in, and which is affordable and accessible for anyone to use. The aim being, to bring to market a course which can reach more people and have a wider impact.

Now talking about back pain; UK research suggests that, if you looked at people on any given day, about 12% (roughly 1 in 8) have low back pain that has lasted at least a day. If you looked at people over the course of a month, about 23% (roughly 1 in 4) experience low back pain lasting at least a day. And back pain happens more often in women and in people aged 40 to 80 years.

So, what causes this? Well, back pain can arise from many sources, including muscles, joints, ligaments, discs, nerves, or even sensitisation within the nervous system itself (we’ll talk about this in our pain education week). Common contributors include muscle strain, age-related changes like disc degeneration or spinal arthritis, reduced physical activity, repetitive loading, stress, poor sleep, or occasionally conditions such as nerve root irritation or compression, or fractures and other serious pathology.

However, research consistently shows that back pain is often difficult to pinpoint to a single structure, and in most people the exact tissue “cause” cannot be identified with certainty. This doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real — it simply reflects that back pain is complex, influenced by physical, psychological, and lifestyle factors, and is rarely caused by serious disease. Many courses, influencers and even legitimate organisations may blame ‘poor posture’ or ‘muscle imbalance’ for back pain, but this isn’t a complete enough picture of the problem.

This course includes a blended 6-week approach including exercise, and education, which is safe for most people with back pain. It is important to recognise that serious pathology, despite being rare – can occur, and it’s important that you are given the knowledge, to self-assess and to work out if this course is right for you and whether you need to seek further help or support for your back pain; this information is included (for free) in the signs and symptoms video on the course content page. Throughout the course you will take part in a 6-week exercise class filled with physiotherapy and pilates based exercises, all of which, have been designed and collated by the course instructors and are backed by current research, and are suitable for all levels. The exercise classes are packed with consistent guidance as well as progressions and regressions to support a strength, conditioning, and mobility approach which get progressively harder as the weeks go on. Alongside this, there is supportive resources, and weekly education videos where you will learn about pain, pacing, work adjustments, diet and sleep and how you can optimise these areas to benefit your life, and your back pain.

If you’re ready – come and join the community taking control of their pain, today.