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The Health and Fitness Express contains
the random and organised thoughts of John Miller
The best thing you can do for your back is to sit up
straight
The cost of the luxury of a sit down job is a minutes
worth of the wall sit exercise every day.
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backpainbooks.com
Over the last couple of months I've put together a new website, designed
to promote the sales of good books on musculo-skeletal dysfunction. You
won't do yourself any harm by going there and having a sniff around
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A few weeks ago I received a note from out of the Esther asking if I
could help someone in Adelaide (home of the Festival of Arts) with a
crook back.
Here in Canberra (Australia's national capital) we run the crook back
clinic two nights a week - where you can spend an hour doing some of the
key stretches that we all need to do to keep our backs and necks in good
shape. Certainly it keeps my back and neck in good shape, which as you
can read in How to Fix Up a Crook Back was really crook a couple of years
ago.
None of this stuff is rocket science. A lot of the best exercises I do
and prescribe having come from people I've met who have said 'Have you
seen this one?' A lot come from China. You can bet on most exercises
that come from China and have been around for 2000 years
Anyway to cut a long story short here's the reply to the letter which
started off by the writer saying she thought that sitting down was the
cause of her crook back.
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Yep, you're right. Sitting down is the killer and here's why.
If you were to sit down at work, on the floor with your legs straight
out you probably wouldn't get a crook lower back and sore shoulders
because the muscles of the calves and hamstrings would stay their normal
length. However, after sitting down in a chair for more than 20 years,
the pelvis is dragged backwards by ever tightening calf, hamstring and
buttock muscles.
Other tight muscles around your buttocks twist the pelvis or drags one
side lower than the other. The bones of your vertebrae immediately above
the pelvis become the meat in a very painful sandwich. They become
twisted, pull on ligaments, tendons and muscles (hence the pain) and
force disks 'out'. If the disks pinch the spinal column it hurts like
hell. If they hit the sciatic nerve you get sciatica.
The hollow in lumbar spine disappears. The nice 'S' shaped curve of the
back has become a 'C' shape.
So, here's what I suggest you do.
If you don't have a Crookback clinic close by, I suggest you join a
yoga class and go three times a week.
Make sure when you're sitting at your desk your chair is as close to the
desk as you can get it. That way you'll be encouraged to situp straight
with a hollow in your lumbar spine. Once you lose the hollow you're
buggered!
Buy my ebook, How to Fix up a Crook Back and make sure you do the
following exercises religiously.
Buy Pete Egoscue's books, the Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion
and Pain Free They're great books and will provide you with an
explanation of what's gone wrong. Just go back to
backpainbooks.com
SIX PRINCIPLES of better musculo-skeletal function
1. The problem has a cause and it can be fixed - find the cause and
treat it.
2. Big problems come from small problems that weren't attended to. If
it's a big problem now, it probably started off as a little problem that
wasn't recognised or dealt with early enough.
3. The primary cause of the pain is likely to be a lack of fitness, a
body lacking in the general level of strength and flexibility needed to do what
may appear to be a very simple and cushy job - sitting down, tapping as
keyboard, rolling as mouse and pushing a pen.
4. The immediate cause of the pain is a body out of alignment. If you do
the right strength and flexibility exercises you should be able to
straighten out the problem
5. It's a big ask expecting the body to get better by having someone do
something to you: sooner or later you have to do something to yourself -
in your case the right mobilising, stretching and strengthening
exercises for your particular condition.
6. Therapy - ice, heat, manipulation, massage, acupuncture, Chinese
poultice ..., speeds
up the rehab process but does not take the place of the strength and
flexibility exercises you need to do for yourself.
SIX TYPES OF EXERCISES TO DO TO KEEP YOURSELF IN GOOD NICK
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1. RELAXING EXERCISES
Here is the king of relaxing exercises. Do this exercise for about half
an hour each day. It's the best position you can get into to relieve the
pain of a crook back. There are a couple of other good ones in How to
Fix Up a Crook Back. |
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2. ROTATIONAL EXERCISES - to do while watching TV or reading a
book.
Hip crossover
Do them over and over for 20 minutes, starting off with a minute each
side and building up to 5 minutes each side.
It is usually the case that one side will be tighter than the other.
This is because the muscles on one side of the body are tighter, pulling
the pelvis out of alignment. If this has happened, it takes the bones
just above the pelvis out of alignment - ouch!
Hip stretch
Similar to hip crosssover. Put your left
leg over the right and then pull both legs toward the floor on the left.
Repeat on the other side.
Keep in mind Egoscue's two principles
- Bones do what muscles tell them to do
- The cause of the pain is not at the site of the pain. |
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3. CALF, HAMSTRING AND BUTTOCK FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES
The cost of the luxury of a sit down job is a minute's worth of the wall
sit exercise twice a day. It will loosen hamstrings and calves.
Want more. There's heaps more good ones in
How to Fix Up a Crook Back.
To preview the selection
click here. |
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4. THE FOUR GREAT STRENGTHENING EXERCISES
Here are four strengthening exercises you can do at home. They'll take
you four minutes.
Air bench for a minute - strengthens the legs.
Superman for a minute (build-up to it). Lift the feet and knees
off first, then the chest and arms - strengthens the muscles of the
back. Keep your arms close to your chest to start with. Start by doing
it for 10 seconds and build up to a minute of gentle ups and downs.
Sit ups with or without feet held - Build up to 20 and then
report back!
Pressups - build up to 20 on your toes and then report back!
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5. HYPER EXTENSION
These are exercises to put the hollow back into
your lumbar spine. |
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6. A GOOD EXERCISE PROGRAM IN THE GYM
Join a gym. 30 minutes on an aerobic machine - stepper, bike, treadmill
or climber, and 20 minutes strength training around the machines will
provide you with the foundation of good health and fitness. |
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So, there you have it. There is no doubt in my mind that if you do the
right exercises, most every day (and the gym exercises three times a
week), you'll get yourself back into good nick
within a few months. After three months you should find that it doesn't
hurt to sneeze or cough; you'll be able to bend over the basin to brush
your teeth; the pain will have subsided; you'll give yourself 80/100.
If it gets better quicker then that send me a medal!
If you find you're not making progress, spend longer each day doing the
exercises.
Once you've bought my ebook, send me an email and I'll give you more
advice on which exercises to do for longer periods of time. I found that
my back took a quantum leap toward good function when I spent a couple
of hours in front of TV stretching from side to side.
Well that's it folks.
Until I write again stay tuned; highly tuned.
Regards
John Miller
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