This article is about a cause of back pain which most people, including doctors, don't understand.

This back pain cause is not disease such as cancer or arthritis. It is not injury such as falling off a ladder. Also, it is not a mentally caused pain...it is a very real pain.

This back pain is caused by incorrect use of voluntary muscles. Voluntary muscles are muscles you can control. Do this. Lift your arm. There you used voluntary muscles.

You can cause pain by using, or not using, your voluntary muscles incorrectly. By using one hand to bend the fingers of your other hand backward you can cause pain. This is an example of incorrectly using voluntary muscles and causing pain.

This discovery, called Denlinger's Discovery(TM), is about another cause of pain throughout the human body and how to fix it. Denlinger's Discovery came about by applying engineering basics to the human body. Using these engineering basics one can also increase the load carrying capability of the body. In this article we'll only look at one function, of several functions, of the back.

In 1759 a Switzerland born scientist named Leonardo Euler (1707-1783) developed the first, most basic formulas about the relationship of the height to the thickness of a column. A summary of this formula is that the thinner a column or post, as compared to its height, the more likely it will fail (ie, break) by bending rather than by crushing. Also, if the column has supports in the middle to keep it from bending, it will be able to carry a much heavier load.

Here's an experiment you can do. get a long, skinny twig from a tree or bush. Stand it up on a table vertically and push down on the top with a finger. Feel how easily it bends. If you push too hard it will break. Next, place your other hand on the side to keep it from bending so much and press down on the top again. Feel how much stronger the twig is now.

You can see an example of this principle applied in daily life by looking at a very tall television transmission tower. Typically these towers have wires, called guy wires, going from the middle (often from quarter, half and three quarter points or more) down to the ground. These guy wires keep the tower from bending in the middle, so it can carry a load to a much greater height.

The spine in the lower back of the human body has voluntary muscles which can act like guy wires to keep the spine from bending from side to side. Looking in the Doctor's Bible, "Gray's Anatomy", you can see these muscles in one of the drawings looking at the rear of the body. These muscles are called "quadratus lumborum" (they are shown in a posterior view of the back and described in the section on Deep Muscles of the Abdomen). Correctly using these voluntary guy-wire-type muscles per Euler's formulas could fix a problem called scoliosis. Currently doctors use braces and even surgery to correct scoliosis. As long as the muscles and nerves are in place and not damaged and the person is willing and able to learn how to use them and s/he then trains his or her guy-wire-type muscles the scoliosis problem could be fixed by correct use of voluntary muscles.

The same basic principle of preventing too much bending, using other muscles, can be applied in another direction to strengthen the spine by preventing too much curve forward and backward. There are other engineering basics which can be applied to the back and other parts of the human body which will be covered in other articles.