Every day thousands upon thousands of people visit a doctor, chemist, chiropractor or physiotherapist for back pain relief. Thousand upon thousands search the internet for the magic elixir that will remove their pain.
If you've got back pain, likely as not you've got a vertical stacking problem.
Vertical stacking simply means how your joints relate to each other.
Here's an example of vertical stacking.
Can you stand with your back to a wall, calves, bottom and shoulders touching the wall. When you are looking straight out at the wall in front of you is your head touching the wall? If there is a gap between your head and the wall then your body is vertically out of alignment.
Tight calves, hamstring and buttock muscles have tilted your pelvis back causing your head and shoulders to move forward.
Standing in the same position, put your arms back against the wall in the surrender position. Can you get the backs of your forearms and fingers against the wall.
If you can't, it's those tight calf, hamstring and buttock muscles have tilted your pelvis back, with the shoulders (and head) going forward to compensate.
Chances are that the muscles around your shoulders are also tight. Most people don't have a shoulder strength and flexibility training program. I fact they hardly use their shoulders at all from one week to the next.
Think about it, how often do you raise your hands above your head? The only time most people do is when they hang out the washing, and if you live in a unit you probably don't even do that, you just chuck the washing into the dryer. Putting food into your mouth and a phone to your ear are about the only reasons for lifting your hands about your shoulders.
If you've got sore shoulders and you don't have a good shoulder strength and flexibility training program you're suffering from motion starvation.
But as well as the work to be done on the muscles around your shoulders, when it's all boiled down you've ended up with a sore neck and shoulders because you aren't vertically stacked in the way nature in tended.
It's ironic that most therapists will work on your neck and shoulders, forgetting they the cause of the pain lies further down the body.
You can save yourself a lot of time, effort and money by doing a set of exercises to loosen off tight calves, hamstrings and buttock muscles and get your body back into better vertical alignment. Head and shoulders go back to where they should be. Problem solved. Pain gone. Simple. Cheap. Effective.
But it's not just your neck and shoulders that are put under pressure it's also your lower back. When the pelvis is tilted back, the beautiful 'S" shape in your spine turns into a 'C' shape. What you've got is a personally-generated musculo-skeletal dysfunction.
It's personally generated by sitting down for long periods of time in the 'slump dog' position. To avoid getting into that position you need to be sitting up straight at your desk, back of the chair upright and pushing in up under your shoulder blades and abdomen pressing into the desk.
It's critical that your abdomen is pushing into the desk. Look around any office and you'll see that very few people with their abdomen touching the desk. They're setting themselves up for crook backs, shoulders and necks. Next thing you know they'll have sore wrists as well.
The good news is that being personally generated you can personally ungenerate these dysfunctions.
To relieve back pain, neck and shoulder pain takes and hour or two each evening on the floor in front of the TV loosening off those tight calf, hamstring and buttock muscles with a simple set of exercises. You don't have to do anything, just spend the time allowing muscles to gradually loosen off themselves.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, it's a big ask expecting to obtain back pain relief having someone do something to you; sooner or later you have to do something to yourself.
John Miller
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