Mr. Jim Morris is the 1973 AAU Mr. America and 1996 Mr. Olympia Masters Over 60. He is now 72. Mr. Morris is a vegan bodybuilder who reminds people that body building involves selflessly looking outward to do good, rather than focusing only on appearance and commercialism. He urges real nutrition through healthy food, rather than artificial chemically produced supplements, and healthy movement rather than harming yourself to gain physical looks or heavier lifts.
Mr. Morris looked over my Ab Revolution book, and wrote to me that he wanted to order several copies for his clients. He wrote, "You are the first person I know of to finally get it right."
Later, after reading Health and Fitness in Plain English he wrote, "I have a copy of "Health and Fitness in Plain English" I just received and every page I open to, I say, 'I wish I said that,' and then add, 'I have been saying it for years.' Glad someone finally put it all into print and in one volume. Thanks, Jim Morris."
Fast Fitness - Fixing Your Handstand to Neutral Spine
Friday, May 16, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Last week's Fast Fitness showed a movie of how to step up into an easy handstand and get back down. This week shows a common pitfall - letting your lower spine sag under gravity - and how to fix it and hold neutral spine.
My student Dennis, Olympic medalist in wrestling, demonstrates:
Step your foot up behind you high onto a wall, then the other.
For the first 5 seconds of the movie, Dennis allows the lower spine to overarch (increase the inward curve) under the pull of gravity, a bad posture called hyperlordosis. It is not the normal inward curve, it is an easily changed bad posture.
At second 5 he changes the tilt of the hip and lower spine back to neutral spine. The action is like doing an abdominal crunch to bring the spine and torso just forward enough to be straight.
This technique practices the muscles and positioning for straight standing, making it better than just a handstand. If you want to gain abdominal strength, using neutral spine uses those muscles. An important difference in Fitness Fixer exercises is that they are not only exercises alone. All the techniques I developed are supposed to be used to train muscle function and positioning for when you stand up and walk away.
Use neutral spine, not only for handstands, but all you do. Examples are in Prevent Back Surgery.
The post Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It? showed the common and painful bad posture of standing with too much inward curve in the lower back, called swayback and hyperlordosis. A reader mailed me an article about gluteal muscles and asked what gluteal muscles have to do with it. The article shows one kind of hyperlordosis, with the hip pushed forward. The drawing at right shows that hip-forward hyperlordosis position (right figure) compared to neutral spine (left figure). The article stated that the hip-forward posture was due to weak gluteal muscles, and that strengthening the muscles would fix the bad posture. The article gave a strengthening exercise of lying on your back and squeezing the "cheeks" of the backside together as if squeezing a coin between them.
Knowing muscle action will help you know why it doesn't work that way:
Your gluteal muscles are muscles of your backside. One function is to pull your upper leg backward, for example, when walking, to pull each leg behind you. The distance between the back of your hip and the back of your upper leg shortens.
If you use your gluteal muscles while standing (not tighten them, just use them to bring about movement) your hip will push forward. That is the opposite of correcting a hip that is forward in bad posture.
Squeezing the "cheeks" of the gluteal muscles together is training a different movement direction than either pushing your hip and leg forward or back.
Another fallacy is that tight gluteal muscles pull the hip so that it pushes forward into bad posture. It is true that tight hip muscles in front will change the tilt of your hip. People with anterior tightness cannot easily bring the leg behind them, which hurts stance and gait. Gluteal muscles cannot get that tight unless you have tetanus. Gluteal tight enough to push the hip forward a few inches would be so tight that you would not be able to sit down. You would tear your backside like splitting your pants.
The key point is that strengthening a muscle does not make it move your body or change your position. If you strengthen your arm, for example, your arm does not automatically wave around or raise over your head. Your arm only moves when you make it move. Strengthening your gluteal muscles will not move your hip for you. Even if strengthening did make any body part move on its own, gluteal muscles would cause a forward hip, not correct it.
Think of asking a dog to shake hands with you. If you want the dog to move his paw up to shake your hand, you do not strengthen his leg and paw. You train the movement and the voluntary desire to bring about the action.
Standing, walking, and running in hyperlordosis is a major cause of lower back pain. Some people stick the backside out in back and others tilt the upper body back with the hip thrust forward. Both increase the inward curve of the lower back and painfully pinch the lower back structures. Although some fitness information and advertisements represent overarching as attractive, even something to deliberately do, it is an unhealthy and weak posture, making it unattractive and undesirable.
Strengthening muscles is good and helpful and fun and healthy, and so on. Strengthening gluteal muscles or any other muscles will not automatically make you stand in healthful position. Stronger muscles do not make you move. You can change to healthful position right now without strengthening. These posts show how:
Fast Fitness - Stronger Arms and Chest, and Core, Hip, and Leg Stability With A Friend
Friday, March 14, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - strengthen inner legs, thighs, arms, and core, while practicing neutral spine with a friend. Better than putting hands up on a bench or exercise ball My students Johanna (1) and Diana (2) demonstrate:
Partner 1 lies face up with bent knees
Partner 2 does pushups on Partner 1's knees while holding neutral spine, not letting the lower back sag and arch downward. Partner 1 holds legs stable and does not let knees wobble.
To increase core and hip stabilization training for both partners, Partner 1 tilts knees slightly to each side while Partner 2 continues pushups. Try both moving continuously side to side, and holding legs stable at an angle. Do not twist your spine. Have fun moving and laughing with a partner.
Spotting Back Pain During Running and Walking - What Do Abs Have To Do With It?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The post Innovation in Abdominal Muscles showed one of the most common, yet most overlooked cause of lower back pain during long standing walking, and running.
Readers sent excited letters stating they could finally see and feel why they had back pain, and could immediately feel the difference when they stopped standing with too much inward curve in the lower spine, and began standing and moving in neutral spine.
Neutral spine at left. The line from the top of the leg up to the middle of the hip is vertical. The beltline (line from front to back through the crest of the hipbone) is horizontal.
Middle drawing shows tilting the hip forward in front and out in back.
Right drawing shows tilting the hip forward, and also leaning the upper body backward.
Readers asked for more photos so that they can see the difference between overarching (hyperlordosis) and neutral spine (normal lordosis) during running and walking. They wanted to see the overarch in action and what running in neutral spine looked like.
The two photos above show allowing hyperlordosis, or too much inward curve (arch) in the lower spine. It is not a normal curve. The angle increases where the back of the vertebrae come together. It does not look fit or healthy.
In both photos, the hip tilts forward in front (and out in back) instead of holding vertical. The abdomen rounds outward.
Note the red stripe on the runner's pants in the photo at left. The stripe tilts forward from the top of the leg to the middle of the hip. Compare to the red vertical line in the middle and right-hand drawing. The beltline tips downward in front. Compare to the red lines tilting downward in the drawings.
The walker in the photo at right tilts the hip forward in front (and out in back), beltline tips downward. The upper body leans and sags backward.
Neutral spine.
The muscles that shorten to prevent the upper body tilting back and the hip tilting forward are your abdominal muscles. The abdominal muscles are too long when you allow overarching. Keep this in mind when you hear about exercise programs that claim to lengthen your abs.
Moving your spine to neutral spine for all daily life is how abdominal muscles help prevent back pain. It is not strengthening them that does this, and it is not tightening. Crunches and other forward bending exercises do not train you how to use your abs to hold neutral spine and they increase herniating pressure on your discs - click Good Life Works Better Than Bad Ab Exercise. Use your abdominal muscles, without tightening them, to position your lower spine during all you do, just like using any other muscles to move any other part the way you want. It is a free ab workout all day, and you will stop a major cause of back pain during standing, walking, and running.
Click Prevent Back Surgery to see why overarching can be so damaging to the joints of the vertebrae.
Click my web site books page www.DrBookspan.com/books to see the training manual The Ab Revolution™. It shows several techniques to learn neutral spine as a normal habit, and how to use it to stop back pain from hyperlordosis, even if you don't exercise (Part 1) and how to use it for better core training if you want to incorporate it into exercises (Part 2), from simple to the hardest you can get.
My student Leslie is 67 years old. She has been working with me for several years. Click the arrow of this 30 second movie to watch her knock off 30 pushups.
At around the 25 second mark of this short movie, enjoy the reaction of the student who will appear at right.
Leslie holds straight neutral spine position. She does not let her lower spine sag, or her head and neck sag downward. To see a movie to practice how to change overarched hyperlordotic sagging spine to neutral spine for pushups, click Fast Fitness - Strengthen by Changing Your Plank.
Leslie says hello to all the readers and that she is strong with such great positioning due to my classes and emphasis on being able to hold up your own body weight in healthful positioning for regular daily life. I hope to post more of Leslie's and other students' happiness and strength.
Bookmark this post. Open it every day and do your 30 pushups with Leslie.
Fast Fitness - Plyometric Partner Bench Press for Valentine's Week
Friday, February 15, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Have fun together as you strengthen arms, shoulders, chest, back, wrists, and core, while practicing neutral spine, speed, teamwork, and cooperation in a fun plyometric partner bench press.
Lie face up with both arms held upward to support partner (white karate uniform).
Push your partner up and down with your hands in a bench press motion. To add plyometric training, push partner strongly and quickly into the air (right). Catch them lightly, bending your elbows upon contact. Switch places and repeat.
Use common sense and springy light touch to reduce unhealthful impact in both partners. You can improve strength and speed without hurting joints and connective tissue. I will post more on plyometrics in posts to come.
Fast Fitness - Prevent Wrist Pain During Pushups and Cooking
Friday, February 08, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - Learn to use strength and good joint positioning instead of compressing the wrist joint during activities that put weight on a bent wrist.
Good positioning and strength is more effective than splinting wrists straight and restricting activity:
While sitting or standing, press your right wrist and hand backward strongly using your left hand. Feel the right wrist compress under the weight of the other hand.
Now use your right hand and forearm muscles to press forward against the left hand. You should feel the compression come off the right wrist.
Hold a pushup position. Use this technique so that, regardless of your weight, instead of letting your weight compress your wrists, you use your hand and forearm muscles. Keep weight distributed across your hand, not just on the heel of the hand.
Use this whenever you use your wrists - for weightlifting, for standing on your hands, for typing, driving, biking, playing piano, and during cooking and cleaning.
Lower back pain is a common problem for golf players. Pain is sometimes attributed to twisting the torso during the swing. The "twisting theory" seemed reasonable, since that is when many people feel the pain. However, the main problem is not twisting. Beside the bad forward bending that is common for picking up golf shots and equipment, a major overlooked source of lower back pain is overarching the spine during the swing.
If you increase the inward curve in the lower back, you increase normal lordosis to hyperlordosis. When you do this during the swing while letting your upper body weight press down on the area, it compresses the facet joints and surrounding soft tissue. It is the same pain that occurs from overarching during walking and running.
A golf pro attended my last workshop on fixing back, neck, and hip pain. I was able to check with her to make sure that what I found to stop lower back pain with golf would not interfere with a good swing.
She stated:
"I do not think arching is essential, but I can imagine the older golfers and what their swings might look like...there are some ugly ones that would arch WAY too much and that is the source of many problems on the score card, as well as the back!"
In the following photo examples, look for too much inward curve in the lower back. Too much curve is not a normal lordosis, it is overarching, called hyperlordosis. Overarching is the reason for much unidentified pain during standing activities.
In the next two drawings, the lower spine is overarched (hyperlordotic) on the left and neutral on the right. Neutral spine keeps a small inward curve, but not a large one:
In these photos, see how the lower back is overarched:
These photos show the lower spine from the back:
In these three photos, see how the lower back is held in neutral spine: Preventing overarching and holding neutral spine does not mean that you do not get a full or strong swing. It is not the case that the only way to get full range of motion is by pivoting from the lower spine joints. By holding neutral spine you will shift the effort of the swing onto your abdominal muscles, giving you a more powerful swing.
To understand how bad forward bending (opposite problem from hyperlordosis) contributes to back pain click The Cause of Disc and Back Pain.
Golf cartoons by subscription to Clipart.com Golf arched 1 photo by jarrod job Golf arched 2 photo by subscription to ClipArt.com Golf arched 3 photo by MattFM Arched swing from the back photo by digital_image_fan Neutral swing from the back photo by mahalie Golf neutral 1 photo by dospaz Golf neutral 2 photo by minds-eye Golf neutral 3 photo by Jayel Aheram
Fast Fitness - Core Hip & Body, Posture Strength & Balance
Friday, January 25, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - training and challenging abdominal muscles to hold neutral spine. Use this, not as an exercise to "do," but to use to retrain neutral spine. Reader Mike, who did a A Whole Big Fix sent this photo to illustrate:
Hold a plank.
Lift one arm straight in front.
Figure out which is the opposite leg and lift that one. Keep straight spine
Mike writes:
"Here's some more feedback on your exercises: it seems the more planks I do with opposite arm/leg extended, the less my hip pops, so I'm doing those every morning for about 4 sets of 10 sec. holds on each side, along with the side planks. Those seem to set my posture off right for the rest of the day. I'm using my hand and wrist muscles to take weight off the bones, as you've said, and my wrists, are getting stronger.
"BTW: my daughter's badminton coach has a PhD in exercise physiology and she's also a big fan of your site."
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - fixing painful swayback to neutral spine.
If you have lower back pain after standing, walking, or running, or feel that you need to bend forward or lift one leg to relieve lower back pain, you may stand with too large an inward curve in your lower back (hyperlordosis).
Stand with hands on hips, thumbs in back
Roll hip under so that thumbs and the back of the hip come downward (not forward)
Use the neutral spine position for normal posture.
Reader David from Belgium made us this short video of correcting overarching (hyperlordosis). At first he is standing with the front of the hip tilted forward and the upper body leaning backward. Both actions increase the lower back curve. Then he tucks the bottom of the hip under to neutral position, correcting the hyperlordosis.
Don't tighten your abs to do this. Just use them to move your lower spine out of unhealthful arching to neutral spine. Breathe.
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - fix your plank (hold pushup position) to strengthen core and wrists, and train standing neutral spine posture. In yoga the plank is done in high and low positions called chaturunga.
A sagging inward curve to the lower back is not the normal curve, it is too much curve - pictured at the start of the MPEG movie below. Holding a plank with a sagging (overarched, hyperlordotic) lower spine "hammocks" body weight onto your spine joints called facets, adding to lower back pain, and does not use your core muscles. It is counterproductive as an exercise. Instead:
Hold a pushup position
Change sagging lower back to neutral by tucking the hip. Head up, neck as straight as standing.
Don't flop all weight on wrists. Press with hand and fingers, and use forearm muscles to reduce wrist compression and shift weight to surrounding muscles - see Stronger Pain-Free Wrists When Biking for ideas.
Reader David D. from Belgium sent this excellent movie. He pushes up into plank. You can also can start on hands and feet without pushing up. He first demonstrates badly overarched lower back, then changes to neutral spine in seconds 8-11 of the movie, then holds. When you do this you will immediately feel the effort shift to your abs. Use this instead of crunches for functional core training. If you push up from the floor, hold tucked neutral spine, not lifting upper body first.
(The exercise is not to do overarching and change to neutral - it is to hold neutral throughout.)
Fast Fitness - Strength, Abs, Balance, and Ankle and Leg Stabilization
Friday, November 09, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quickly increase functional stabilization of the knee, leg, and ankle while increasing overall strength and balance.
Anyone can lift weights, but can you do it balancing on a basketball? Get started by standing on one foot:
Do your regular lifts, curls, presses while standing on one foot (and then the other). Breathe.
Notice the leg you stand on. Don't let the arch of your foot flatten toward the floor, or knee roll inward toward the other leg. Hold knee, ankle, arch inline, using your muscles. See Arch Support Is Not From Shoes.
It reduces exercise to sit, even on a fitness ball. It is more exercise, more functional, and better balance training to stand on one foot than to sit. You sit all day already.
Be safe, be excited about having fun doing functional movement, be happy.
Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Reader Ivy from New Zealand wrote me that she was house-sitting for friends on their farm. When you read her note, remember that Ivy is a great-grandmother,
"You were very much on my mind yesterday. My friends had arranged for someone to come onto the property to feed the stock. By 5pm no one had turned up so I decided that I would have to do it myself.
"Picture me pushing wheelbarrow loads of hay - carrying buckets of water to fill the troughs and so the list goes on. The paddocks were muddy so had to wear gumboots. I was terrified of falling over. Chickens to be fed, eggs to fetch, pony to be fed plus the sheep and cows. Two of the water troughs had to be filled by hand hence the buckets. I tried to crawl (yes crawl) through the bush to get the hose through to no avail. I can laugh now, however, it wasn't funny at the time.
"This is where you come in - I kept repeating these words to myself the whole time "Now do what Dr Jolie has taught you, use your abs, tuck your hip" (to neutral spine so that the lower spine does not overarch) - "Squat, Ivy, squat - don't bend over."
"The whole thing took me 2 hours - I really thought I would have back ache and that the sciatica would rear its ugly head, but no, I am fine (Jolie's note: Ivy stopped previous sciatica using these healthy techniques). My evening meal consisted of a slice of bread and some fruit - I was too tired to even think of cooking. After a hot shower, I fell into bed exhausted and slept through until 6.30am. I don't have any aches or pain.
"That was my day."
I mailed Ivy a few days later to check how she was feeling. Ivy was still great and wrote,
"The neighbours arrived to check the sheep which are ready to drop their lambs. Needless to say Dr Jolie, I am hoping that they hold off until Harriet and family arrive back home on Monday."
We will see if there will be a post about Ivy using good bending and sitting mechanics to tend birthing sheep and baby lambs.
Readers have asked for posts on wrist strength and stopping wrist pain with use and exercise. It is in the works. I am also still working on the post I started with, where Ivy wrote of success doing a hip stretch, coming soon.
Readers, feel inspired, get out of the gym and have some fun doing lifestyle exercise, have fun taking photos, and send helpful stories.
It is not true that back pain and weakness is normal with aging. It is not true that to stop the cause of back pain you must do special exercises to strengthen one specific muscle or group such as the multifidus or abdominal muscles. It is not true that you need to rest or cut back activity to stop back pain, or use special devices.
Doing specific exercises does not stop the cause of back pain. Consider the number of people who do their back exercises, then bend wrong to put down their exercise equipment and pick up their things, then spend their day sitting, walking, and bending in the injurious body mechanics that created the pain in the first place. Examples and what to do instead are in the posts: Leg Exercise That Helps Your Back and Prevent Back Surgery.
Last year, Ivy, a Fitness Fixer reader from New Zealand stopped a long disabling bout of sciatica by stopping the cause in her daily life and the exercises she was doing - Inspirational Ivy. Ivy was not sedentary. She faithfully exercised, so was surprised to wind up with sciatica so serious that she lost partial use of her leg. One of the positive changes she made was to stop doing crunches. Ivy wrote:
"I was one of these people who for years did 100 crunches a day thinking that they would strengthen my back and take away the pain. Not so. I have been following your Better Abdominal Muscles advice for a year now, it just being part of my every day life....the bonus being no more back pain."
Problems with crunches:
Most people already know that sitting rounded over the desk is unhealthy. Spinal discs are strong and withstand compression, but asymmetrical loading from chronic forward bending degenerates disc in front and bulges them outward, among other problems. The same problems occur with forward bending exercises like crunches, also called curl-ups, partial sit up, and abdominal flexes, among other names.
Crunches and other forward bending exercises do not work your abdominal muscles in the way they need to work in real life.
If you have tendency to a rounded upper back posture, have tight neck muscles, or already sit, bend, and walk around with your spine bent forward, adding to that with crunches is counterproductive.
Ivy did not have thinning bones, but for someone with osteoporosis, forward bending exercises add the possibility of promoting further kyphosis (upper back rounding) and crush fractures.
Ivy wrote me last week:
"Over that eleven-month period that it took to find your web site, I must have opened every web site there was that mentioned the word sciatica, some of which I took aboard and wondered why there was no improvement. I can smile now when I recall how a few days after following your advice, the pain had disappeared and I attended my great granddaughter's first birthday where I sat too terrified to move in case the pain resurrected its ugly head."
Ivy is a great-grandmother, and she is fitter now than when she started. She changed the way she exercised to make it functional instead of a list of arbitrary motions that did not relate to healthy movement in real life. Here is Ivy's next adventure applying healthy body mechanics in an unexpected day of heavy farm work.
If you want to make one positive change for your health, stop doing abdominal crunches. If you don't like to do exercise at all, then be happy. If you like to exercise, there are more effective, functional ways to use abdominal muscles. Start with If Better Abdominal Muscles Are Your New Year's Resolution, Try This.
A standard recommendation for back pain is to stand with one foot up, or in front of the other. Why? Pubs often have a foot rail to put your foot up. Why? This post shows 1. A major missed cause of the pain, 2. An innovative relief, 3. The missing link of what abdominal muscles actually do.
1. The Cause If you stand with your behind tilted out in back (middle) and/or lean the upper body backward (right), you increase the normal inward arch in the lower spine.
Overarching produces a mystery ache after long standing, walking, running, and lifting overhead. People who do this feel they must bend forward or sit to relieve this pain, or put one foot up. These movements reduce the painful arch. The pain reduces, and may later return when the person returns to injurious bad slouching (standing in hyperlordosis).
Often no injury shows on x-rays or scans. The person may be told nothing is wrong. Or that they have a back "condition." They many be told to strengthen their muscles, or improve endurance, or given pain suppressing medicine. Those do not stop the source of the injury. Over years, the facet joints (joints of the vertebrae) may finally wear out. Sometimes other things show on x-rays and the patient is treated for the scan results, the pain masked with drugs or returning mysteriously because this cause went unaddressed. Injections and surgery are frequently prescribed, but not necessary. Why not?
2. The Relief The latest "buzz-phrase" in fitness is that back and abdominal muscle endurance, more than strength, is important in solving back pain. However, that still leaves out the key - improving endurance with conventional core training does not train you to stand without overarching. It is not automatic.
The innovation is not a new pill, device, or footrest, or to improve strength or endurance with crunches (not good for your back anyway), or to work on one particular muscle, for example the overrated multifidus. The innovation is to stop the source of the pain then and there, by reducing the over-arch to normal, small inward curve called neutral spine, with simple spine repositioning.
The left photo shows overarching. It is not the normal curve to the lower spine. The silhouette of the lower back is hidden by the arm, but you can see the beltline tilted downward in front and the hip tilted forward in front and out in back. The length of the abs is roughly marked by distance between the hands.
The right photo shows reducing hyperlordosis to neutral spine. Try it yourself by standing with your hands on the bottom of your ribs and center hipbone. Straighten your torso, as if doing a slight crunch standing up. Hands draw closer. The belt line levels. This is normal, straight, relaxed standing position.
The post Prevent Back Surgery showed overarching in action, and gave another quick method to learn neutral spine.
3. How Abs "Support" The muscles that you happen to use to tuck the hip under until you reach neutral spine are your abdominal muscles, including obliques. That is the innovation. You stop the source of pain and get free built-in abdominal muscle exercise at the same time. No tightening, just functional use as a lifestyle. That is what abdominal muscles do. They prevent overarching - but only when you use them.
To direct treatment to fixing the source of pain, and to replace conventional core training with something that applies better to real life, I developed an innovative technique that specifically trains core muscles functionally - which means maintaining healthy spine during daily use. It is called The Ab Revolution™ and has two parts. The first details how to get comfortable neutral spine to stop pain during daily life, no special or strenuous exercises needed. The second part is for people who want healthier exercise. Exercises range from simple to high. Students using the book asked for more illustrations, so Part I of the newest edition has 49 illustrations. Part II on functional strengthening has 65 illustrations, both with step-by-step instructions. If you use the book, use the newest third edition, expanded.
I received an invitation to take a course to learn a new back surgery for damage to the facets. Facets are the joints at the back of each vertebrae (spine bone). The surgery was advertised as a good revenue producer.
In the surgery, the facet joint is cut off and replaced by "lumbar position preservation hardware" rigidly attached so that the area can no longer bend or arch backward. At right is an X-ray of the lower spine with surgically implanted hardware. The person is standing sideways facing to the right. Surgical facet rigid fixation surgery is considered innovative because it replaces the more drastic spine fusion. It also replaces repeated injections into the painful area. The seminar would teach me the surgery with a cocktail reception following.
Why does the surgery want to prevent arching the lower spine? The facets are in the back of the vertebrae. Chronically letting your spine arch (too much inward curve) squashes the facets in back. According to work I've done over years in the lab, the overarching, called hyperlordosis (or slouching backward), is a chief factor in damage and pain to the facets and surrounding soft tissue. That means that you can stop this yourself without the surgery.
