I'm really obsessed with posture these days. I'm doing exercises to find and strengthen my neutral spine position. I walk, I sit, I ride my scooter, all with a mantra of "shoulders back and down, abs tight, chest proud". This is what I've learned from Back Forever, reinforced at the gym, and validated by how I feel as I do it. I learned this the first time I went through physical therapy for my back, more than a dozen years ago, and my sole yoga class had a session on mountain pose, with subtle points about my shoulders, my chest, my thighs, the crown of my head and my chin. A running clinic I took reinforced the posture further. Hold yourself right, and you can run all day.
Bending over is special. I heard back in February a piece on NPR about how Americans round our backs when bending over to the ground. Most other cultures around the world bend at the hips (hip hinge) and make their spine parallel to the ground, flat like a table. But, says the piece, Americans look like cashews when we bend over. (My horrible back spasm in March happened when I bent over to tie my shoe. I'm certain I was a cashew then.)
"Shoulders back and down, hinge at the hips, brace that core..." was my mantra while working in the yard today. I spent a solid three hours pulling out English ivy from an area newly fenced and to be reclaimed as garden. "Don't be a cashew, don't be a cashew" was the short-cut. Stand up, hip hinge, bend legs into a squat, grab and pull by straightening my legs while remaining bent at the hips but straight at the waist. Similar to some moves I do at the gym.
Now, the back clearly has been working hard today, but it's not terrible. I do my back exercises every single morning, just as Kim's friend Chris says to do, after the first cup of coffee but before the second. It starts with neutral spine march, not a lot of exhertion, but training my body to keep that core straight. Seven exercises in total, ten to twelve minutes depending on the reps. It's given me the strength to be able to bend over and stand up while pulling for three hours straight!
3 comments:
I love practical application. I am forbidden from weeding until the end of time, but as I sort laundry today I will think hip hinge. Shoulders back and down is something I think about many times a day. Congrats on an awesome amount of weeding!
Liz
You never cease to amaze me, because you do all the right things!!!!
Alice, I write about doing all the right things, but there is much that I don't write about. You, on the other hand, have a degree of honesty that leaves me breathless sometimes.
xo
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