Back pain relief advice for Maryk and Uncle Ben
Dear Brother and Sister,
I will spend some effort now to write of my understanding of the exercise I mentioned and its benefits.
First, though, I will advise you that I have passed this information on to many
people over the years and have seldom heard from them of the remarkable benefits
that I have enjoyed from it with the alleviation of disorders of the back.
I have wondered about this and have decided that this must be so due to the simplicity and effort of practicing this type of exercise. Others may have not liked it and have discontinued doing it and so, in my opinion, have not reached the
point of getting any worthwhile return from effort expended.
In the aforementioned seminar the expert talked of the need for balance in all things in life; the truth of “all things in moderation” even applies to the muscles of our bodies. You will know that the way a muscle works is by contraction
. If you look at the muscles of the arm or leg you can see that to lift something the muscles of the biceps contract. When sitting on a chair and you move your leg up parallel to your thigh the muscles in the top of the leg contract and to move your leg back to the floor the muscles at the back of the leg contract …
muscles do work when they contract, not when they release and expand or lengthen. This concept has to be understood in the relationship of muscles in the back
and stomach area. In the ordinary course of daily movement such as walking, bending forward and straightening out, lifting, etc. most of the actual work is done by contraction of the muscles in your stomach area. Over time those muscles
get stronger than those along the spine in the back. An imbalance occurs between the strength of stomach muscles and the strength of some back muscles. This imbalance will put extra strain on the spine. The spine properly requires an equal balance of muscle strength along it, side to side and front to back. It is a
column and if there is any imbalance there will be a gradual pulling of the spine into a curve towards the stronger of the contracting muscles.
The secret of a pain free back is a straight spinal column surrounded by equally
strong support muscles keeping it straight.
Many people will use sit-ups as one of their exercises and this exercise will definitely strengthen the stomach and chest muscles but will do little or nothing
for the muscles of the back and this imbalance must be countered by an exercise
that will strengthen the muscles directly opposite from the stomach muscles to help pull the spine back into the necessary straight vertical position.
I believe how to do this is the key to reducing back pain.
Lie on your stomach on the bed or the floor, it matters not where. Remove the pillow at your face and have no blanket over your body. Now, ARCH your back. Do
this by lifting the legs together as high as you can as well the head and upper
chest as high as you can. This is difficult! Hold this position as long as you can. I count slowly or watch the second hand of a clock to see at what point
I must relax and slump back onto the bed or floor. Over time you will find that
you can hold this arched position longer. This is because those muscles being
used grow stronger. And that is it! I have found that my ability to sit at my
computer without back pain grows as those back muscles involved in this exercise
grow stronger. Another variation I do is to “bounce” the effort of holding the arched position, about 2 bounces per second and of course not allowing my head or toes to touch the bed. I have found that this seems even more beneficial for me and reduces the “boredom effect” of just holding this straining position
.
One other effect of this isometric-type exercise is a feeling of complete relaxation immediately afterwards and ease of falling to sleep.
Try it … don’t give up, it may seem useless and tiring but, for me, this simple isometric exercise has solved my back problems.
David
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