Lebron James' Back Spasms

Lebron James is on track for another amazing year in basketball. Lebron is in the race for a third straight NBA MVP award, a third straight Finals MVP award, and a third straight NBA Championship for his Miami Heat. But that is all dependent on one thing: can his back hold up?

Lebron has a long history of back spasms and back problems dating back to at least 2006. He has only missed one game in his career officially because of back spasms back in 2007. After dealing with those back spasms in 2007 Lebron decided to take up a yoga practice: (quote from 2009)

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"It is something that really can help your balance. I had some lower back problems a few years ago and once I started to do the yoga, it has helped them go away for now. Of course we can stretch but stretching only goes so far."

In 2013, Lebron James sat out several preseason games as part of the Miami Heat "maintenance" program, stating:

"No, no injuries -- just not suiting up." 

But he later reviled he's been dealing with back spasms since preseason, probably the real reason for the missed games. Apparently either he isn't doing his yoga or his yoga is no longer working. When asked about his back spasms in November he said:

“It's my whole back. My neck and my back. The good thing is, it's not my first time having back issues, so I'll be all right...I keep an eye on it."

I've been keeping an eye on Lebron since high school also and I just hope Lebron and his training staff see the same things I see and fix it before its too late. Let's start by taking a look at Lebron James' posture:

We can see in all these photos (and basically any you can find) that his feet turn out a lot (foot eversion) following his knees that point out (external femoral rotation). In Postural Alignment Therapy, we call this a Condition 1 posture:

To understand what is happening in a body assuming this posture, we must follow the compensation pattern throughout the body. The problem starts in the pelvis with tight hip flexor muscles that pull down on the front of the pelvis causing it to tilt down (anterior pelvic tilt) and puts excessive arching into the low back (lordosis). Every step Lebron James takes the more his hip flexors pull down on his pelvis and spine exacerbating the problem. Lebron James' upper back will begin to round (kyphosis) pulling his shoulders and head forward and down in an attempt to decrease the tension in the lower back. This can be seen here:

The tight hip flexors causes tension in the hips, and in an attempt to relieve this tension the femurs externally rotate, turning the knees and feet outward. You can see Lebron's feet and knees pointed outward below.

These postural imbalances can lead to pain in the feet, knees, hips, lower back, upper back, shoulders and neck. Just using ice, heat, and stretching to relieve the pain will only help with the symptom and not correct the underlying problem. Yoga can be helpful, but if not targeted to all his postural imbalances is nothing more than stretching and his old muscle memory will keep pulling his body back to the condition 1 posture and lead to more back spasms. Let's all hope that his training staff is looking at his entire posture and starting him on a program of postural alignment therapy to correct his muscles imbalances and posture so we can enjoy watching him play for another 10 years. 

To learn more about Condition 1 posture and how to start addressing it read "The Power of the Egoscue Tower."