Background: Lumbar lordosis is a result of muscle shortening and may cause low back pain. Objective: To examine the effects of static and dynamic stretching on lumbar lordosis and low back pain in university students. Stretching is an intervention that can be applied to shortened muscles; however, very few studies have compared the effects of static and dynamic stretching on lumbar lordosis and low back pain. Design: Randomized controlled clinical trial (single-blind) Methods: The 12 selected subjects were randomly assigned static stretching and dynamic stretching groups each containing six students. The subjects in each group performed their respective stretching programs for 17 minutes, 3 times a week for 4 weeks. Lumbar lordotic angle, low back pain, and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were measured before and after the intervention. Results: Intragroup comparisons showed significant reductions in lumbar lordotic angle and low back pain in the static stretching group while the dynamic stretching group showed significant decreases in lumbar lordotic angle, low back pain, and ODI. The intergroup comparisons showed significantly greater differences between pre- and post-intervention in lumbar lordotic angle and low back pain in the dynamic stretching group compared to those in the static stretching group while ODI did not show any intergroup difference. Conclusions: The results of this study indicated that, while both static and dynamic stretching helped to reduce the lumbar lordotic angle and low back pain, dynamic stretching was more effective in alleviating lumbar lordotic angle and low back pain compared to static stretching.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of central posteroanterior mobilization on the pain, muscle tone, flexibility of trunk flexion, lumbar lordosis in patient with chronic back pain has been studied. The target subject was a 23 year old man, who had chronic back pain without surgical history within six months. The pain has been indicated by the pressure pain threshold, when the subject was pressed his spinous process of L3-L1 by the pressure of grade Ⅳ. The muscle tone, elasticity, and stiffness were measured by the MYOTONEⓇ PRO, and the flexibility of trunk flexion was evaluated by the distance from the figure tips to the floor, when subjects flexed their body. The lumbar lordosis was measured from the X-ray picture. The lumbar central posteroanterior mobilization of Maitland orthopedic physical therapy has been applied to the spinous process of L3-L1 in grade Ⅳ by five sets and 10 times for each set. According to the measurement result right after the intervention, the pain decreased from 2/10 to 1/10 based on the visual analogue scale. The flexibility of trunk flexion (distance from the finger tips to the floor) increased The muscle tone decreased from 15.3 to 14.65 and the muscle stiffness also decreased 53.5 from 310 to 256.5. However, the muscle elasticity increased from 0.89 to 1.04 and there was no changed on the lumbar lordosis as 25°. The results of the present study suggest that the central posteroanterior mobilization decrease the pain, muscle tone, and muscle stiffness of the lumbar area, however increase the muscle elasticity and flexibility of the trunk flexion.

An abdominal drawing-in maneuver (ADIM) with a pressure biofeedback unit can be used to prevent excessive lumbar lordosis during bridging exercise. Therefore, in this research, the effects of an ADIM on lumbar lordosis and lower extremity muscle activity during bridging exercise were investigated in thirty healthy adults. Surface electromyography (EMG) and VICON system were used to collect kinematic data and muscle activity, respectively. A paired t-test was used to determine a statistical significance. The results showed as follows: (1) When performing bridging exercise with an ADIM, the height of the anterior superior iliac spine and greater trochanter decreased significantly (p<.05). (2) When performing bridging exercise with an ADIM, the trunk extension angle and pelvic angle increased significantly (p<.05). (3) When performing bridging exercise with an ADIM, the EMG signal amplitude increased significantly in the rectus abdominis, internal oblique abdominis, external oblique abdominis, medial hamstring, and lateral hamstring (p<.05). (4) When performing bridging exercise with an ADIM, the EMG signal amplitude decreased significantly in the erector spinae (p<.05). From the result of this research, an ADIM trained with pressure biofeedback unit during bridging exercise is effective to prevent excessive contraction of erector spinae, to limit excessive motion of pelvis from sagittal plane and to increase muscle activity of abdominal muscles and hamstring muscle.

In today's society, many women wear high-heeled shoes, but the effect of heel height on lumbar lordosis has not been clearly defined. The objective of this study was to identify the influence of heel height and general characteristics of subjects on lumbar lordosis. The subjects of this study were 40 healthy women who were students of the Department of Physical Therapy, College of Rehabilitation Science, Taegu University. Flexible ruler measurement was used to measure the lumbar lordosis at barefoot, 3 cm and 7 cm high-heeled standing positions. The results were as follows: 1) Significant statistical decrease in lumbar lordosis was observed as heel heights were increased from barefoot to 7 cm high heel. 2) There were no statistically significant differences between lumbar lordosis according to three different heel heights and weight, body mass index. 3) Lumbar lordosis measured at different heel heights was related to subject's height. With increasing subject's height, lumbar lordosis that measured from each heel height was significantly decreased. As heel heights were increased from barefoot to 7 cm high heel, significant statistical decrease in lumbar lordosis was observed in the subjects whose height were 151~160 cm. 4) Intrarater reliability on lumbar lordosis taken with a flexible ruler was good, with Cronbach values of 0.8971 for barefoot, 0.8107 for 3 cm and 0.9002 for 7 cm high-heeled standing positions.