DrQuickbeam

Oh yeah and a chiropractor will not resolve issues like this. Find a physical therapist that works with athletes and kinetic mobility/recovery stuff. Most PTs work with old people, post op, or chemo patients and are too gentle/slow in their approach to younger folks who need to retain their bodies.

Core strengthening can help with back pain, but in this case it’s different. Walking on soft or variable surfaces causes less impact pain to sensitive nerves. People with poor flexibility or damaged discs in their back feel more pain from walking on hard, flat surfaces. The quality of shoe support / insoles can help with this too. If you have back pain when you walk, you start to compensate for it with an uneven gait, turning your pelvis inward or outward or tightening your hips. Over time this will cause tight muscles that will pull your spine out of alignment and exacerbate pain. Uneven terrain will force a break in these habits and encourage mobility and stretching in tight hips, hams and back muscles. This can be improved off a trail by doing mobility exercises like 3d lunge matrix, kinetic hip flexor and hamstring stretches. I would add that while you can prevent most back pain by doing core strengthening, wearing supportive footwear and doing these kinds of flexibility/mobility practices, it is always better for your body to have variability in how it exerts itself, than doing the same exercises over and over. Hiking is great for this because the terrain and the way you tackle it changes a lot each time you hike.

OP dweller here!

I will add that indeed these suburbs are designed for driving, even if there are good sidewalks and parks everywhere. Where I am at, everything feels like a 5 to 15 minute drive away. Banks, pharmacies and lots of restaurants have drive-thrus. Major intersections are typically one mile apart on a squared grid. The major stroads are often lined with big stores and restaurants with giant parking lots, while the interior parts of those grid blocks are housing colonies, schools and parks. Different suburbs are connected to each other and the city with arterial highways. And compared to Europe, fuel is very cheap. Cartopia.

Make a small spray paint stencil or vinyl sticker that represents your crew, or inspires people to think differently, and put them around your town or natural areas in subtle, cleverly inconspicuous locations.

Explore your area with Alltrails, or a similar app, finding new hiking or biking trails.

Urban exploration: creep through abandoned buildings, climb fire escapes to reach the rooftops, use catwalks under bridges to cross roads and rivers, scurry through large water drain pipes and abandoned steam tunnels.

Start a lucid dreaming competition with your friends, and share your experiences every morning. As you all develop more dreaming skills, you can share them with each other, and slowly become the masters of your dreams.

Come up with scavenger hunts that guide people into the coolest, hidden areas of your town, using clever clues, and share them online, similar to geocaching.

Pick up rubbish off the ground, one area at a time.

If it doesn’t exist publically in your country, get equipment to either test air or water quality at several spots around your community, and then share them online through posts, or by hosting an Ushahidi map. Encourage others to chip in.

Get your gang to volunteer together to help homeless, elderly or disabled people once or twice a month. You will both bond with your buds and gain new perspectives from the people you work with.

Arrange spontaneous dance parties in public with little flash mobs made up of your mates. Try to get strangers to join in on the fun. Disperse after one song, so you don’t get in trouble.

Learn to identify the 10 most common trees in your area, then the 10 most common flowers, the 10 most common weeds, the 10 most common birds and the 10 most common insects.

Explore local theater, try to find weird niche performances at churches, swingers clubs, primary schools, corporate retreats, futurist festivals, government events, and street corners. Make sure to cheer loudly and throw flowers.