Newcastle West's Cale Fletcher is one of thousands of people in the Hunter who suffer from chronic back pain.
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Pinpointing the cause can often be elusive.
University of Newcastle research into lower back pain is planning to make a difference in this area.
Mr Fletcher, 26, is a participant in this research.
He said his pain "sort of grumbles along".
"When I started the trial, the pain was three to four at its worst," he said, referring to the pain rating system, which ranks 10 as the worst imaginable pain.
"It's relatively constant on bad days and intermittent on every other day. I'm conscious of it whenever I do any sort of activity like pick something up, twist or sit down."
He said the pain began 3.5 years ago.
"I injured it at the gym. I didn't warm up properly and was a bit ambitious. I pulled something initially and I think it's never fully healed since then," he said, adding that the pain was in the right lower back, above the hip.
University PhD candidate Sean Sadler said the research would examine treatments for "chronic, non-specific lower back pain".
Mr Sadler, who lectures in podiatry, said data showed about 15 per cent of Australians experience lower back pain.
"It's very difficult to determine the cause of non-specific back pain," he said.
"Most of the time it's likely to be treated around factors such as posture and the general biomechanics of how people walk.
"But more and more research is showing there's a big influence from psychological, occupational and environmental factors. It's definitely a myriad of causes, rather than one particular area."
He said the research would examine whether "commonly available interventions that are cheap and well tolerated can help people improve pain and function".
It's a randomised control study, so he can't give too much away about the treatment until a participant is assigned a group.
"The idea behind that is they won't know about any of the other treatments in the study, only the one they're given," he said.
"It's not medication and it's not invasive. It's not surgery or needles."
The researchers are seeking English-speaking males and females aged 18 to 65 who have chronic lower back pain of unknown cause that has lasted longer than three months.
"We also want to recruit some people for the study without back pain but from the same demographics," he said.
If you are interested in participating in this research, email sean.sadler@newcastle.edu.au or phone 4349 4655.
