By Joene Hendry

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Whole-body resistance training may be the key to minimizing chronic low back pain, findings from a small study suggest.

In the study, men and women with chronic backache reported a 60 percent improvement in pain and functioning after participating in a 16-week exercise program of resistance training using dumbbells, barbells and other load-bearing exercise equipment.

By contrast, those who participated in 16-weeks of aerobics training, such as jogging or walking on a treadmill, experienced only a 12 percent improvement in their low back pain.

Dr. Robert Kell of the University of Alberta in Canada and colleagues report their study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

The researchers compared before and after measures, such as pain, muscle strength, body mass, and body fat, among 27 men and women with chronic low back pain. The otherwise healthy, but previously inactive men and women were 35 to 40 years old on average and had been experiencing back pain for an average of 28 months.

For 16 weeks, 9 participants followed a resistance training regimen, 9 undertook aerobics (primarily on treadmill and elliptical machines), and 9 served as non-exercise controls.

The researchers based the whole-body resistance training regimen on similar programs for athletes-in-training. Typically, these regimens "increase the intensity and/or volume of exercise on a regular basis," Kell told Reuters Health.

Participants used free weights and resistance machines to build upper and lower body muscle strength, and underwent scheduled tests to gauge their progress and determine appropriate steps of advancement.

Besides marked pain reduction, the resistance group improved in muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility; gained 1.2 percent more body mass and lost 15 percent of their body fat, compared with measures obtained at study enrollment.

The aerobics group benefited from significant loses of body fat and body mass, and improved in cardiorespiratory measures, but did not achieve the same level of pain relief as the resistance exercise group. As expected, the control group showed no changes.

When it comes to low back pain, "any activity that makes you feel better is something you should pursue, but the research indicates that we get better pain management results from resistance training," Kell said.

SOURCE: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, January, 2009

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