Spinal Anatomy

Anatomy of the Lower Back (Lumbar Spine)

its important to have a brief look at your spinal anatomy or the different parts that make up the human spine, before going on to talk about what happens when you get lower back pain.

Vertebra - the building blocks of the human spine

Believe it or not your spine is a really strong, flexible structure. It is designed to support your body, protect your spinal cord and allow movement, and it does this really well.

The human spine is made up of bony blocks called vertebra, these are tough, chunky bones. In fact the parts of your spine you can see from behind when you look in the mirror are the bony parts at the back of the vertebra, these are called the spinous processes. human spine anatomy

The vertebra also has bony projections to the sides and these are called transverse processes, you can't see these yourself but your physiotherapist or chiropractor can feel them.

The vertebra are separated from one another by big, shock absorbing spinal discs.
Each vertebra overlaps the one below at the back to form joints, one on each side.
These joints are called facet joints (they are sometimes called zygapophoseal joints too but as that is such a mouthful I think we will stick to facet joints).
Facet joints are the links in the chain, they are the key to movement in the human spine (and to many types of back pain too).