The weak points
Our back is a gorgeous creation, but it still has limitations. There are weak points.
A well functioning body needs lots of nerves for control, coordination and signal transmissions. These nerves are the very center of our life support, but at the same time they have to be soft and vulnerable. Only then they can react fast and sensitive, can keep our body alert and nimble, and this means they have to be protected very well and at all times.
For this protection we mainly have two powerful shells. One is the skull, and the other one is the vertebral column. Construction of the skull was easy for Mother Nature: basically just nothing but a ball of thick bone.
But the brain inside needed some kind of “data highway” to be connected to rest of the body, and that is where the real challenge set in: to create something like a very strong tunnel to withstand lots of pressure and same time keep this tunnel as flexible as a rope. What no human engineer could ever master, Mother Nature did so with our spine. This is such an outstanding accomplishment that biologists indeed named a whole order of species accordingly: the vertebrates. Humans are vertebrates.
The weak point however is where the nerves have to leave the spine to reach their final destination. For this purpose our vertebral “data highway” needs holes for the nerves to come out from the bone and proceed into the flesh. Holes that have to be part of this structure that at the same time needs to be so strong and so flexible.
And it is at these points that we suffer frequent damage: when spines or cartilage are worn out or injured, when the holes are getting too big or too small, when nerves are getting irritated or squeezed.