Saturday, August 4, 2007

Lower back advice

Hi Folks

I'm one of those people that as a child, I resented everyone always telling me about my posture. I thought my body would never change and I could do nothing to harm the way it operated.
Boy was I wrong. It took me until I was about 35; after I had been the office field for 10 years; to realize how much damage I had done to my body. It started with a chronic shoulder pain, for which I went to the Doctor. He sent me to physical therapy, which I did not stay with, because I thought the exercises they had me doing were going to hurt more than help until I corrected my posture. So with the help of my counselor, the Holy Spirit, (Oh didn't I tell you? I am a born again Christian) I began my journey back to good posture, but as with anything that is developed over a long period of time it was going to take many years to undo.

Anyway a few weeks ago I started experiencing lower back weakness, which I have experienced before but never took the time to actually do anything serious about it. I had tried little things but they always somehow just made it worse. Well this last time I experienced this weakness I decided to try to mimic the position I get into when I do a wall chair, you know when you stand about 12 inches away from the wall and lean your back into the wall, then slide down into a sitting position. Yea the one that kills the front of your thighs. Well "that" position I put my back into when I press it into the wall and the straightness it produces, is what I mimicked when I was standing, or sitting in the car and in my chair at the office. Concerning when I sit in my car, I usually push my butt all the way to the back of the seat, but when I was trying out this position, I pulled my butt forward from that position just a little and leaned back into the seat with my lower back and followed with my upper back,which lengthened my shoulders and felt so good. To do this you also have to have your feet positioned flat on the floor, pointing forward, and in front of you about a foot, so as to give you the leverage you need to sit this way. Oddly enough you need to have the same stance to do this while you are standing up too. I am attaching a web site address on posture that will show you the positions I am talking about. http://www.apta.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=20457
If you are like me you spend a lot of time in your car and you can position yourself in this way before you start driving to get the advantage of this exercise during your driving time to work, home, or anywhere. I bought a cushion with ties, which is normally used for a wood kitchen chair and tied it to my headrest to compensate for my drivers seat reclining too far back, it supports my upper back.

I have found all of this to work very well for the support and strengthening of my lower back. I hope it helps you as much as it has me.

Well I must be going, thanks for tuning in.

I will be talking to you again.

Sherry

No comments: