There is no doubt that once you have pain in your back, it can be all consuming and very difficult to alleviate. In my mother’s case it was due to an unsuccessful operation which caused a piece of metal to trap her nerve. In my case, according to my consultant there is nothing I can do (except carry on with the Pilates style exercises) because I have a degenerative condition of the spine.
So how come when I do move my spine about in a 3 dimensional way it feels better? How come when I really think about the way the rest of my body is working I can release the pain? I teach stretching and strengthening classes every day and yet I still have a sore back. Surely, that means that I am moving incorrectly? Continuously putting pressure on a certain area of my spine. It’s not like we’re born with back pain. In many cases, it becomes a learned movement that we struggle to change.
Well. I’ve been doing an experiment on myself and it’s working. It’s very simple. It works on the premise that if you can release tension in your neck and shoulders, you will use your spine differently because of the way the entire shoulder girdle is designed. Of late, I have realised that I hold a huge amount of tension in my shoulders. Even more when my back hurts. I can tell, because if I’m driving or walking or actually pretty much doing anything and I remind myself to slide my shoulder blades down towards my waist, the pain in my lower back disappears almost immediately. In addition, if I remember to keep my shoulders down, all my movement starts much higher up my spine, in my middle back, rather than starting from my lower back which releases a huge amount of pressure.
In order to keep our spines mobile and flexible we should attempt to move it in full movement range everyday: flexion/extension, side-bending and rotation and believe me if your shoulders are right up by your ears, your spine won’t move correctly. The purpose of good posture is essentially to have good, free, effortless movement using the body in the way yours was designed to move with no stress on key areas.
There is a huge amount you can do to improve how your body works, but exercise isn’t always healthy. Especially if you are using your body incorrectly. We need to understand our own bodies more and what is happening functionally.
So. Try this. (I’m guessing that at this stage you’re sitting at your computer):-
Sit up and lengthen your spine
Tilt your pelvis to the back of your chair slightly
Then relax your shoulders.
Curve your body forward, first tucking your chin in to your chest and roll down just a bit.
Feel how your spine moves between the shoulder blades
Then do the same movement but with your shoulders hunched up to your ears.
Pay attention to where you initiate the movement of the spine from
Then repeat, but this time making sure your shoulder blades feel as if they have melted down your back towards the chair and again take note of how much more free your spine feels in between your shoulder blades.
Then try and remember to breathe and release your shoulder blades at every given time during the next day and let me know if it helps…
I don’t know how to display these photos properly, but you can see that in the first picture, when the shoulders are down, the spine is curved and moving from the top, whereas in the second one, with shoulders up by the ears, the spine starts moving from the lower back and as soon as I do that I can feel pain in my lower back and pelvis.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:09 am
There is a lot of confusing information available about back pain. I like to keep things simple by using a quick little test. Try this out. It’ll literally take 1 minute.
Lie down on your back for 30 seconds with legs extended out, resting on the floor. Now bend your knees so the feet are sitting flat on the floor near your behind for 30 seconds. Which one feels better? If your back pain diminishes with knees bent then your spine has excessive extension stress acting on it. There are simple exercises to correct this. If your spine felt better with legs extended then you have excessive flexion stress acting on your spine. Again this is easily correctable.
Chronic pain results from a cycle of issues. Anatomical problems feed biomechanical issues which then affect movement habits that reinforce the original anatomical and biomechanical problems. Fixing back pain requires attention to all three levels. It’s quite simple to correct though and outlined this in my book. I’m very successful treating chronic pain and it is likely this information will be the key you’ve been missing to fix your pain. I’ve also posted this test on YouTube, if you’re interested.
February 18th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Thanks Rick, that sounds v interesting and yes, I agree, it’s generally to do with biomechanics Lx
February 18th, 2010 at 8:22 am
This looks very much like a pilates stretch i use. It works wonders for me.
March 18th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
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June 29th, 2010 at 4:08 am
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July 11th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
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