It is becoming a common belief that these pains in our back, neck, knees, etc. are a result of our body being out of sync and telling us something is wrong. Through stress or injury, or lack of consistent stretching to keep our muscles loose and supple our bodies become out of symmetry. Muscles that don’t get stretched on a continual basis begin to pull our body out if its normal balanced stasis. This starts to put stress on the supporting structure of our skeleton and, instead of our body load being spread evenly over support structures it gets spread to one side or the other. Parts of the body that were built to share the load find themselves carrying a greater proportion of the load. These spots begin to deteriorate and send out help signals on the way of pain.
An easy example is our spine. It is designed to carry our weight in a gentle s-curve which places the load squarely across the surface of each vertebra. This curve is maintained in its proper shape by the strength of the back muscles counterbalancing the strength of the abdominal muscles. Our back muscles get a daily workout in general just keeping us upright and as in our everyday activities, we lift things, move ourselves up and down as we get out of chairs, etc. Our abdominals unfortunately don’t get this rigorous work out unless we intentionally focus on it. Our back muscles are constantly working and strengthening; they need a conscious effort to stretch them to help them relax and stay supple. Our abdominals are loose and relaxed; they need us to consciously work at strengthening them. If we don’t continually focus on these two needs:
Our back muscles strengthen and tighten pulling our spine out of its proper s-curve
Out abdominals loosen and weaken allowing the spine to slip out of its proper s-curve
This results in the body mass being shifted to the edges of some of the vertebrae which causes overloads resulting in degeneration and pain. If we don’t do things to counter this lack of symmetry we are destined to a life of pain and agony.
This example of back pain is one way we put our bodies out of symmetry. We also do this by slouching in chairs as we watch TV or read books, working at a job station that causes us to do most of our effort in a one-sided fashion, receiving an injury that causes us to favour one side of our body and carry the load more with the other. Just being left-handed or right-handed causes us to do things unevenly. There are many things that we do or have happen to us that may cause us to lose the healthy symmetry of our body structure. If we allow this state to continue some part or parts of the body take more of a load then they were designed to carry. This results in pain which, if unattended become chronic pain and then a disabling condition.
At this point I’m going to tell you a short story about a good friend of mine; Phil. He is an avid skier and it was on the mountains of Alberta, B.C., and theNorth West States that I have shared some tremendous times with him: but enough about that.
Phil had tremendous back problems. Each morning before skiing he would literally role out of bed onto the floor and work at limbering up his back enough to be able to move about in a normal manner. We would then ski the day away. Did I tell you that he had a tremendously high pain threshold?
Phil was this way when I first met him and for several years from that time. He read a great deal about his condition and was quite an expert on everything about it except making it go away. He had been to several doctors and had undergone various treatments including acupuncture. He was at a point of desperation and was seriously considering undergoing spinal fusion as a last resort to overcoming the pain.
It was at this point of desperation that he happened upon a life-changing discovery. My friend Phil did not go through with the spinal fusion surgery. He did however, go on to control and conquer his back pain.
To be continued . . .
Until then . . . in pain or not . . . . . . you still . . . look . . . marvellous!
To read the rest of this article:
http://myhealthandfitnessstrategies.com/2007/08/06/control-of-and-freedom-from-pain/
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Bill Jensen operates myhealthandfitnessstrategies.com/ a blog about health and fitness of mind, body and spirit. He loves giving away free things and is now giving away free membership to his monthly newsletter. You're not going to believe what you get when you sigh up . . . and it's all free! More information here: myhealthandfitnessstrategies.com/
Side Note: For More Pain Relief Click Here
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