As a holistic practitioner I am always asking the question whether an issue in the body is Structural, Biochemical or Emotional in origin. Structure includes joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles and fascia. Fascia is amazing stuff. Also known as connective tissue, Fascia is a network throughout the body. It runs from the Plantar Fascia up to the top of the skull. Until very recently, students in cadaver labs wouldn’t even see fascia, since it was regularly removed to better study the muscles. But within this thin film of tissue is a whole other world! Receptor sites for emotional polypeptides are found throughout the body in the fascia. (read Candace Pert’s book “Molecules of Emotion”). Research has also unveiled pathways of water molecules which directly follow the Meridian System as described in Chinese Medicine! And this is where it gets interesting.
McGill Big 3 back exercises, Back Pain Part 4
I’ve been talking about Stewart McGill, his research and approach to back health. McGill took all his research and findings and honed it down to what he refers to as the “McGill Big 3.” Since he is so central to the rehab world, you can find this all over Google or YouTube. But please keep in mind that like anything on the Web, there is good information and there is bad. No one edits what is posted, so there will be variation on these exercises.
The three exercises address the Lumbar Paraspinal muscles and the Abdominal muscles which make up the core. In all these exercises, have your abs tightened, as if someone is going to punch you in the stomach. This will brace the back for the exercise. To paraphrase, they are as follows:
Back Pain Basics, Part 3
Scientific stats point out that 85% of low back pain is of unknown etiology. According to back expert Stewart McGill, that simply means that most back problems are not adequately identified and are thus misdiagnosed! Diagnosis often depends on the profession of the treating therapist or physician, each seeing the problem through the lens of their respective training. There’s that old aphorism of the many blind men identifying an elephant according to the respective part that they are each touching. Also, if the tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
The source of back pain can’t always be identified. Much research has gone into this question. Often, pain is the result of a microtrauma of the facets or the disc, small aberrant motions causing micro-tears or avulsions which in turn cause other structures to react. Disc endplate fractures from mechanical over-loading is common, and that damage causes pain. Such damage can occur from repeated low force trauma such as lifting boxes wrong at work, or from a one-time accident, such as landing hard on a jet-ski or snowmobile. Such endplate fractures can lead to the disc material draining into the vertebra over time, causing a decrease in its ability to cushion between the vertebra. Another scenario might be a young gymnast doing excessive back bends for years developing a shear injury which leads to a facet fracture the low back that only becomes an issue only as an adult decades later, perhaps following a whiplash auto injury. [Read more…]
The causes of low back pain, Part 2 – Posture
Posture is the first thing I note when a new patient enters my office with back pain. The typical pattern I see is a tucked pelvis and forward head. This posture leads to shortened muscles in the front of the neck and overly strained muscles in the back. The head is typically the same weight as a bowling ball (about 12 lb), so just as it would be a lot heavier and harder to hold with outstretched arms, so is it a lot heavier and more stressful to those small muscles of the upper back holding your head up when it’s in front of your shoulders! It can make the difference between 12 lb and 50lb, based on if your head is a few inches forward of your shoulders!
Let’s talk about the low back; a tucked pelvis usually involves chronically shortened Glutes, Hamstrings and Abs, and deep Lumbar paraspinal muscles which are simply not fully on! As one stands, so do they generally sit, so if you’re a tucker, then you likely are loading your sacrum when sitting. The Sacrum is the upside-down triangular bone between the pelvic bones. It did not evolve to be loaded when sitting. Rather, we should be perched on our “Sit-bones”. Posture teacher Esther Gokhale (“8 steps to a pain-free back) describes this as sitting so that your tail is behind you…or so that your behind is behind! This applies to both standing and sitting. [Read more…]
Join us for the Whole Life Challenge this Fall 2017
Whole Life Challenge: Team Innate will be forming soon for the September 16–November 10 round of cleaning up your life habits. This 8-week process focuses on 7 habits: Nutrition, Exercise, Movement, Sleep, Hydration, Lifestyle and Self-reflection. There will be an early bird savings to sign up, and lots of support via website & apps. This should be fun! Hope you will join us. Stay tuned for details to come.
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