The five lumbar vertebrae take up a 60% load of the body’s weight and they are designed for this purpose, with each vertebra from Lumbar 1 down to Lumbar 5 increasing in size.  Any misarticulating of the weight bearing facet joints between the vertebrae shifts the responsibility to the soft tissue around the joints to take up some of the weight.  Without the facet joints taking their load, the weight also unnaturally puts pressure on the discs between the vertebrae, a job that these cartilaginous structures were not designed to perform.  The strain will pull something out of the normal postural position until finally the body is overcome, losing the ability to compensate any more and the result is some form of strain pain.  There are six major ways that the lower back can give in to this strain; anterior or posterior tilts of the pelvis, sidebending of the lumbar spine which goes along with a functional short leg, restrictions of the sacroiliac joints, the sacral base or foundation of the spine being pulled out of the support position, the misarticulating of L5 from the sacral base, and dysfunctions of the joints between Lumbar 1 through 5.  In our private practice, we have found that clients often have a combination of all of these conditions.  The painful conditions have to be treated first, of course, but the other conditions have to be addressed in the treatment plan as well, or they can become the next precipitating factor for lower back pain.