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Back Exercises for Low Back PainWhat Can You Do
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CLICK ABOVE TO SEE AND HEAR THE RESULTS. This vignette is not staged, but actual, as you can surmise from the (at times) poor camera work.
Quick Answers to Ten Basic Questions:
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Right here, you've found instruction in a type of back exercises for lower back pain that may work better than anything else you've come across -- as fast or faster for back pain than pain meds, longer lasting than stretching, more sound than strengthening. Are you in the know about Somatics?
Read this write-up, and then...
CLICK HERE for the free video so you can give yourself . . .
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This write-up explains back care in a way that finally makes sense and explains some things about your past experience of back care.
To make things easier for you, I provide links to topics, thus, so that you may read selectively: |
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I begin with an observation: Although it is often believed that the more invasive (or more standard-of-care, or more manipulative, or more high-tech) the procedure, the more likely it is to be effective, with back pain, the opposite is commonly true. Your back is already sensitized and reactive; it wants ease. A certain kind of non-invasive, self-controlled, gentle, "low-tech/high-touch" procedure can bring more complete, longer-lasting results faster and and more cost-effectively than invasive or high-tech methods, even under desperate conditions. How can this be? It's an entirely new approach to back pain with entirely new results.
The approach presented here has helped thousands of people who have already had unsuccessful back surgery or other procedures to end back pain and recover freedom of movement. The video, above, shows one such person. Take a moment and view it, now, and then, resume reading. What to do, next? The video, below, shows you.
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"Left untreated, the damage could get worse." ~ Nexxium commercial
[ commentary ]
see also:
"Understanding and Overcoming Lifting Injuries"
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The first thing to consider is, "What is the origin of the sharp or sudden pain of a back injury?" Is it muscle? bone? cartilage? nerve?
Pain in the back, itself, usually comes from muscles going into spasm; the pain is the "burn" of muscle fatigue. Pain in the buttock or leg(s), when not muscle pain, (sciatica), comes from nerve compression, resulting from muscles going into spasm in the back, where nerves emerge from the spinal column, or in the buttock. Pain in the upper back may come from muscle spasm and the resultant displacement of rib heads from their seat(s) between vertebrae. Disc herniation (bulge) or rupture, often of muscular origin, causes nerve root compression that shows up as nerve pain distant from the location of the disc, itself. In a very high percentage of cases, tight muscles are the cause and key to relief. |
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Spinal alignment is not the central issue. Spinal alignment is maintained by muscular pulls; bones go where muscles pull them. Your muscles aren't controlled by skeletal alignment; your muscles control skeletal alignment, regulated by your nervous system. Tight muscles don't keep themselves tight; your nervous system keeps them tight as a reflexive action. Despite best intentions, you can't change reflexes by stretching. Free control of muscles and movement is the issue. When you have control, you have freedom. You can freely tighten muscles and you can freely relax them. Right now, you can't relax your back; you're in the grip of a postural reflex of stress ("Landau Reaction"). The approach, here, is to free your back by freeing your muscular control. Click to go straight to instructional video to relieve back pain. |
Medical Practitioners' Quandary; Patients' Quandary: How to Control Back SpasmsMedical practitioners, including physical therapists and surgeons, face a peculiar quandary with regard to back pain in general: because their patients' pain so often comes from back muscle spasms, much of their efforts go toward ending back spasms or correcting their consequences (facet joint pain, herniated discs, spondylolisthesis/slipped disc). Still, according to one physical therapist, the likelihood of a back pain patient returning in another episode of back pain is about 80%. Back surgeries have a success rate of about 15%.Patients also face a quandary: money concerns. Patients tend to choose methods of treatment covered by health insurance, first. They want to use their health insurance because they've paid for it and so go to alternative methods as a last resort. Back exercises of the type shown below are an alternative to conventional treatment that promises speedy improvement. straight to instructional video to relieve back pain. |
Overview of Back Pain and Muscle SpasmsLet's take another look at back pain that casts new light on conventional treatment.Unless you have had a violent accident, your back pain, whether sudden or chronic, has been coming for a very long time. Muscular tension builds up for a long time before crossing the point of no return and becoming a back spasm. Then, like the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back," a small movement can trigger a crisis: muscle spasm. So, we return to the therapists' quandary: back spasms. What causes back spasms? What controls muscular tension? The answer may be obvious to you: your brain, the master control center for your muscles; your brain causes your muscles to go into spasm. Why? |
Muscle Spasms -- Usually a Brain-Conditioning Problem
Here, the answer may not seem so obvious -- until you understand it: conditioning. Apart from momentary reflexes, your brain controls your muscles. Your brain gets conditioned through repetition: repeated overuse, repeated overstrain, repeated stress. Your brain learns to hold muscles tight "on automatic". It's what is meant by "nervous tension." At that point, your tight back no longer comes from bending or lifting, but from a tension habit stored in your brain. You're always tight, on the verge of spasm or in spasm, and having gotten used to it, you probably don't even know how tight you've become. The problem isn't exactly "all in your head" -- but it is in your brain.
With tingling or numbness, the muscles of your back are so tight that they are pulling your vertebrae (the bones of your spine) so close that they trap and pinch nerves.
So the problem is simpler than you might expect. You probably do not have a medical problem; you probably have a conditioning problem. By relaxing those muscles, you end the pain of spasms. You also free the nerves from pressure and end the symptoms of a pinched nerve.
With the new methods, a muscular conditioning problem can often be cleared up fairly quickly -- past experience notwithstanding.
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Perspective on Therapeutic Methods to End Back PainThe view of most therapeutic methods holds that back pain comes from weak muscles. They therefore prescribe or practice "strengthening and stretching".This view is understandable. Tight muscles are tired muscles, and tired muscles feel weak and seem to need strengthening. Tight muscles are shortened muscles, and shortened muscles seem to need stretching. Tight muscles cause postural changes, and postural changes imply the need for strengthening and stretching. However, if stretching were the answer, people who stretch their back muscles would no longer have back problems. It begins to look as if "The Stretching 'Emporer' has no clothes." The problem isn't weakness or muscles in need of stretching; it's muscular overactivity and muscle fatigue (tiredness and soreness). It's simple: When muscles relax, they rest and get refreshed (feel stronger); they lengthen out (no longer seem to need stretching). With normalized muscular functioning, spinal alignment improves, movement normalizes, comfort returns. A more direct approach, then, is to improve muscular control. People with back pain generally need a brain-muscle approach -- either to avoid surgery or after surgery. |
Muscular ControlBecause they concentrate on muscles instead of on the brain-level control of muscles. Common therapeutic methods -- spinal and soft-tissue manipulation, surgery, spinal decompression/inversion therapy, and most therapeutic exercises in general -- use models based upon a misunderstanding of the essence of the situation: muscular control.Muscular control has two parts: the ability to regulate muscular tension (regulate strength and relaxation) and the ability to sense muscular tension. Both abilities are needed. Therapeutic methods typically neglect the sensory awareness part of control. Too often, people are given therapeutic exercises but no instructions in how to do them (e.g., slowly or maintaining awareness of the sensations of movement), only what to do (e.g., do abdominal strengthening exercises, i.e., crunches; they're told, "These are strengthening exercises," so people go for strength instead of control; they go for effort (measured by numbers) without sensory awareness (experienced by feeling). That's why most therapeutic methods don't work as well as they might. To the extent that they do work, they do so through gains of muscular control at the brain level. Progress comes slowly, at best, often from working too fast and too mechanically (if not too hard). If you can't feel how to control your muscles, you can't feel how to relax them. You need to improve your ability to control your muscles and that involves your ability to feel your muscles working under your control (not merely the pain of muscles in spasm). As you do, you recover comfortable freedom of movement; you recover the ability to relax; you stay more relaxed without thinking about it. To, show you how do-able this is, I'll present some coordinated movements that can often restore comfort to sore backs. NOTE: If your problem is severe, (numbness or tingling in your extremities) see your doctor to rule out conditions that can be addressed only by surgical means, such as a disc tear.
A: STARTING POSITION: Do these movements for ten minutes daily for a week or two. Many people get just the results they need.
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| Understanding and Overcoming Back Pain | Somatics: ReAwakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health
by Thomas Hanna, Ph.D. |
Free Yourself from Back Pain
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