|
Musculo-skeletal Health 101
From this .... to this (Model from Alexander)
If your pelvis is out of alignment, likely as not the bones above it will be out of alignment from your lower back through to your neck and shoulders. Chances are that on the lower side of your pelvis your hips and knees will be out of alignment as well.
Poor musculo-skeletal health is a huge problem. 50% of adults give themselves 5/10 or less when asked to rate the current condition of their musculo-skeletal system. They don't have a clue why it's happened to them or that most joint and muscle pain is personally generated. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Arthritis Association think it comes from out of the blue.
Certainly most lower back pain is personally generated. If people spend all day sitting down and don't have a regular strength and flexibility training program it's almost inevitable. They'll often blame an incident (often something as trivial as lifting a ream of paper from a shelf) and then rush off expecting someone to rub it better.
(My mother was good at palliating cuts and bruises. If you banged your head, out came some butter to rub on it followed by a lie down under the bunny rug and a bit of TLC. Butter doesn't seem to figure prominently in medicine chests these days. I believe the TLC contained greater recuperative power than the butter!)
But if a high proportion of joint and muscle pain is personally generated, chances are the best treatment is to personally ungenerate it.
Pain is just a symptom
Joint and muscle pain is a symptom of a skeleton that's out of alignment.
If you want to relieve the symptom - pain - get your skeleton back into alignment. This something that only you, yourself can do. Lower back pain is not caused by a lack of rubbing crunching, heating, vibrating, doping or surgery.
Four principles you need to be aware of
1. Muscles take bones out of alignment. That's the bad news. The good news is that, with the right exercises, muscles can get the bones back into alignment.
2. The cause of the pain is rarely at the site of the pain. So getting someone to attack the site of the pain isn't going to do you much good.
3. The X-ray is a useless tool in tracking down the cause of your pain. It merely tells you 'what is' not what's caused ' what is'.
4. Form (skeletal alignment) follows function (the ability to comfortably perform the exercises I have for you).
No need to complicate the simple
All you need to do is find out which of the muscles attached to your pelvis are too tight and loosen them off.
Over the next few 'Health Breaks', I'll show you some of the key exercises that are designed to loosen off the usual suspects, tight hamstring, buttock, hip flexor and quadriceps muscles. Finding it difficult to get into these stretch postures is indication that your skeleton is out of alignment. Doing the postural exercises will help you to get your skeleton back into better alignment.
Regards and best wishes
John Miller Daily Health Break ________________________
|
