Muscular fitness is associated with spinal pain among young people: A cross-sectional exploratory study

the aim of this study was to analyze the association between upper limb muscular fitness and spinal pain in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions among young people.

Cross-sectional study involving a probabilistic sample of 1054 participants (547 female) with ages ranging from 10 to 17 years, from Brazil. The dependent variable was pain in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the spine, assessed by a self-report instrument. The independent variable was muscular fitness, verified using the 90° push-up test with the cut-offs proposed by FITNESSGRAM. The covariates were age, sex, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and body mass index. Ordinal logistic regression was adopted to conduct the multivariate association and estimate the Odds Ratios (OR). Two separate analyses were conducted: one with the whole sample and the other with only participants who reported pain.

The prevalences of spine pain in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions were 24.4, 28.3, and 31.0%. In the whole sample, young people who achieved the criterion-referenced standard for muscular fitness were less likely to present high intensity pain in the thoracic region (OR = 0.67, 0.50-0.90). The same occurred when analyzing only those who reported pain for cervical region (OR = 0.48, 0.29-0.79). No association was found between muscular fitness and lumbar pain.

Upper limb muscular fitness can be used as an additional tool to prevent high levels of spine pain in the thoracic region among young people as well as the severity of cervical pain in those who report pain.