MOST people (65%) think weight training is a bad idea if they have back pain. Yet nothing could be further from the truth, according to experts at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP). “The back is an incredibly strong structure and lifting even heavy weights does it more good than harm,” says CSP spokesperson Jack Chew. “Any back soreness after a weights session is likely to be muscular and won’t be lasting harm.”
In an Opinium survey of 2005 adults across the UK that was commissioned by the CSP, almost half of respondents (49%) said they would also avoid running if they had back pain. “That’s also a myth,” says Chew. “Any kind of exercise, running included, is good for the back.”