Dr. Sean Barber, a neurosurgeon with the Houston Methodist healthcare system in Texas, told Medical News Today that a wide variety of underlying health problems can cause lower back pain.

“Back pain can arise due to degeneration of the intervertebral discs, degeneration of the joints connecting the spinal vertebrae, instability of the spine, deformity, nerve root compression, and muscular strain/sprain, among others,” said Barber, who was not involved in the study. “For patients who have been recommended to pursue non-surgical treatment for recurrent lower back pain, exercise of some sort, avoidance of smoking, and maintenance of a healthy body weight have been shown to lead to a decreased incidence of future back pain recurrences.”

The researchers plan a follow-up study on integrating preventative intervention into regular patient care. Exercise and education are already considered best practices for back pain management, but some programs include significant barriers to utilization, Pocovi said.

“The exercise-based interventions to prevent back pain that have been explored previously are typically group-based and need close clinical supervision and expensive equipment, so they are much less accessible to the majority of patients,” said Pocovi. “Our study has shown that this effective and accessible means of exercise has the potential to be successfully implemented at a much larger scale than other forms of exercise.”

Barber said the study is important because “nonspecific lower back pain is highly prevalent and the source of considerable socioeconomic burden.”

“The patients included in this study had little to no prior experience with regular exercise, and as such likely benefitted from the assistance of a physiotherapist in determining the ‘appropriate starting dose’ and ‘appropriate progression’ of their walking program,” Barber said. “That being said, one does not necessarily need the help of a licensed professional to begin walking or to begin light exercise of any sort.”

Prior studies have also shown that exercise can benefit patients with lower back pain, Barber noted.

“In many cases, it does not appear that particularly high-intensity or lengthy sessions of exercise are required to achieve this benefit, which is evident in the fact that the actual difference in walking volume at three months between the intervention and control groups in this study was only 600 steps – or roughly 1/4 mile – per day,” he said.

For those recovering from episodes of back pain, a walking regimen is an accessible way to ease back into exercise, said Dr. Farhan Malik, an Atlanta-based family medicine and sports medicine physician.

“I recommend starting with short, 10-minute to 15-minute walks and gradually increasing duration as tolerated,” Malik, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Medical News Today. “Proper walking posture is also key: standing tall with a neutral pelvis, relaxed shoulders, and eyes looking ahead. For long-term back pain management, a regular walking routine of 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week can increase endurance, improve mood, and provide lasting relief.”