This Common Activity Reduces Risk Of Low Back Pain, Study Says

June 17, 2025
Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Struggling with low back pain? Slip on your walking shoes and start hoofing, a new study suggests.

People who walked more than 78 minutes a day were less likely to suffer from low back pain, researchers reported.

Power walking also protected against low back pain, but to a lesser degree than ambling for longer periods of time, according to findings published June 13 in JAMA Network Open.

And there’s a dose-response relationship — the longer or harder you walk, the more you reduce your risk of low back pain, the study says.

“These findings suggest that policies and public health strategies promoting walking could help to reduce the occurrence of chronic low back pain,” concluded the Norwegian research team led by Rayane Haddadj, a doctoral student with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Department of Public Health and Nursing.

Back pain is the most common type of chronic pain in the United States, researchers said in background notes.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 11,200 people recruited for an ongoing Norwegian health research project between 2017 and 2019.

Those included in this study wore activity trackers for a week to gather data on walking and physical activity. Their average age was 55.

At a follow-up an average four years later, about 15% of the participants said they had suffered from lower back pain for three or more months during the previous 12 months.

Researchers found people who walked more than 100 minutes a day had 23% reduced odds of low back pain, and those who walked 78 to 100 minutes daily had a 13% lower risk, compared to those who walked fewer minutes, results show.

Walking intensity also made a difference, lowering risk by 15% to 18% as power walkers increased their pace, the study says.

“Walking intensity was also associated with risk of chronic low back pain but to a lesser degree than walking volume,” researchers wrote.

Physical activity currently is considered a prevention tool of secondary importance when it comes to low back pain, researchers noted.

But these results show that walking could make a huge difference in a person’s health, and not just for bolstering back health, researchers said.

“The potential role of walking could be further promoted owing to its ease of implementation, accessibility, and numerous health benefits beyond reducing the risk of chronic low back pain,” researchers concluded.

However, more research is needed to confirm these findings, which do not prove a direct cause-and-effect link between walking and low back pain.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on the health benefits of walking.

SOURCE: JAMA Network Open, June 13, 2025

Backache Exercise: Walking