Now, I know I have quite a few visitors who weren't born in the seventies and maybe aren't experiencing this phenomenon yet. Just bear with me because we all get there sooner or later.
Chronic lower back pain comes for everyone eventually. For me it started with 12-hour shifts in steel-shank boots in front of a metal lathe and continued on from lugging books & mags. That adds up to almost ten years of lifting some of the densest materials known to man. So yes, my back hurts every day; some days are better than others.
I find inactivity makes everything worse. Even if it's a bad day I know I have to get up and move around or it's going to seize up. In spite of all that I rebel against exercise. I just hate the tedium of riding or doing sit-ups. I find the whole concept of exercise ridiculous, undignified and a waste of time - even though I know otherwise. I used to think it was laziness but I am a born worker - put a job in front of me and it's done. I think it's more that there is no concrete goal to exercise.
What got me thinking about all this is this article from My Yoga Online about how breath-holding compensates for lack of strength in the lower back. Everyone over a certain age does this - it's that grunt you hear when you bend over to tie your shoes or pick up the laundry basket. I have been working on freeing up my lower back, which is a concrete goal. My goal is to be able to move about when I am 80 because I come from a line of long-lived women. Thirty-six is too young for shit to be rusting shut.
Rock Band drumming has done wonders for my upper and mid-back. It seems silly but playing the drums hard and fast forces you to use your core to stabilize your torso. I have let a natural seasonal indolence combine with anxiety over my job and my yoga schedule has dropped off a bit, though. I have to start working on that. I also bought some tribal dance DVD's because, as I mentioned earlier, I am not afraid to look silly.