With that said: most lower back pain is not structural damage. Modern pain science is unambiguous on this. The disc bulge that shows up on the MRI is also present, painlessly, in 37% of healthy 20-year-olds and 96% of healthy 80-year-olds (Brinjikji et al., 2015). Fear of movement is often a larger part of the experience than the tissue itself.
The Lower Back Field Guide is 22 pages on what modern pain science actually says, what graded loading actually does, and how to think about a back that has tweaked once and may again.
Inside this one
- 22-page pocket field guide for general lower back resilience (after clinical clearance)
- Red-flag checklist — the symptoms that mean see a physio or physician immediately
- Modern pain science explained in plain language — Moseley, Butler, Brinjikji, Vlaeyen
- Graded re-introduction protocol — bridge, dead bug, light RDL, progressive return
- Cross-referenced with Vol. 35 (Posture & Pain) and FG14 (Office Athlete)
- Full Technical Addendum with peer-reviewed citations — audit me
The standard it is held to
Every factual claim in this volume names its source, and every claim carries a confidence grade — settled, strong, emerging or contested. Where the evidence is thin, the text says so. How it’s made, in full → · What we’ve got wrong →