The 'weekend warrior' trap
We see this pattern constantly: someone sits for eight or nine hours a day, then goes hard at the gym or on the course a few times a week and assumes that workout offsets the sitting. It doesn't — at least not for your spine.
Prolonged sitting keeps the hip flexors in a shortened position and the deep core and glute muscles switched off for hours at a time. An hour of exercise doesn't undo eight hours of that posture; it just adds load on top of it.
What's actually happening in the low back
Sitting increases disc pressure compared to standing, and it does so for hours without a break. Combined with tight hip flexors pulling on the pelvis, this is a common driver of the dull, achy low back pain that shows up by mid-afternoon or flares the next morning after a workout.
Over time, the muscles around the spine adapt to that shortened, inactive position. When you then ask them to fire hard during a lift, a swing, or a run, they're not ready — which is when strain and irritation show up.
What actually helps
Movement breaks matter more than most people expect — standing up and moving for even 60–90 seconds every 45–60 minutes measurably reduces disc pressure and keeps the hips from stiffening.
Hip flexor mobility work and glute activation drills, done consistently, address the root cause rather than just the symptom. We build these into every plan for patients with desk-driven low back pain, alongside hands-on treatment to restore motion in the joints that have gotten stiff.
If your back pain seems to track more with your work week than your workouts, that's a strong sign posture and sitting load are the bigger contributor — not your training.
