Around the world there is an epidemic of back pain - and other musculo-skeletal pain.
Much of this pain is personally generated.
In a sedentary society, weak and tight muscles allow bones to be drawn out of alignment. For a while you don’t know it’s happening, in fact you could be 99% of the way to herniating a disc and you still think you’re OK.
Then comes the incident - lifting the groceries into the car, bending down to put on your socks, swiveling round to pick up a phone book ...
Likely as not you’ll blame the incident. Then it’s off to the doctor who’ll send you off for an X-ray. The X-Ray will show you what’s happened but it won’t tell you what the underlying cause of the problem is. Then it’s off to the chemist for a pain killer, but low back pain is not caused by a lack of Nurofen. Next move is to the chiropractor or the physio for a rub down, crunch, heat pad and the electric shock.
If you go to a surgeon you can guess what advice you’ll get, and if you follow it through you could find yourself with a bill for 50 Grand.
The problem?
You’re out of alignment. It takes neither a rocket surgeon nor a motor mechanic to work out that if your body is out of alignment, sooner or later you’ll end up in pain.
There’s an iron law of back pain that says that the cause of the problem is rarely at the site of the pain.
Most therapists will want to rub and crunch the spot where it hurts. They miss the point. It’s why you’re not getting better. It’s why good money is going after bad.
The underlying cause of the pain is usually tight hamstring, buttock and hip flexor muscles. They take the pelvis out of alignment.
When that happens the bones immediately above the pelvis are drawn out of alignment. Ligaments, tendons and muscles are stretched beyond their pain threshold. The disc between two misaligned vertebrae ‘pops’ out and hits your spinal cord. That’s when the fun really starts.
You can’t sneeze or cough without it feeling like someone’s ramming a red hot poker into your back. You can’t bend down to pull up your socks or do up your shoes. You can’t bend over the basin to brush your teeth.
The solution?
Get yourself back in alignment by loosening off the tight muscles and strengthening the weak muscles.
The Fix Back Pain program is a tried and tested program, that helps you identify which muscles are weak and which muscles are tight. Then you’re given a set of exercises to gradually straighten yourself up.
It’s going to take a while. It’s not a quick fix. But it stands to reason you can’t expect to fix in days something that’s taken decades to happen. Having said that, in the first few days of doing the exercises you’ll start to feel looser. In a few weeks you’ll be feeling the difference and in a couple of months you’ll notice a big difference.
You can do the exercises at home while watching TV.
The beauty of the Fix Back Pain program is that you don’t need to fork out large sums of money for therapists to do something to you. You are the therapist. The reason is you can’t subcontract out your own strength and flexibility training program.
In fact it’s a big ask expecting to get better by having some one do something to you; sooner or later you have to do something to yourself.
Studies show that if you can’t do a sit up, can’t do a pressup, can’t touch your toes, are more than 20Kg over weight, don’t have a flexibility training program and don’t have a strength training program the chances of getting back pain are very high.
But once you start a targeted strength and flexibility training program things will start getting better. To be fair, you can’t expect to cure all back pain with this program, but there’s an 80% chance that for 80% of people they’ll get themselves back 80% of good condition in a few months.
John Miller
http://www.globalbackcare.com
Physical educator, John Miller is the Director of the Musculo-skeletal Fitness Institute in Canberra, Australia. The Institute is dedicated to improving musculo-skeletal health by firstly assisting people to diagnose the cause of their pain, and then recommending to them the exercises most likely to get their bodies back into better alignment. John is the author of the Fix Back Pain (and other musculo-skeletal pain) series of ebooks. You can read all about these books on the Institute's Global Back Care website, www.globalbackcare.com