6 Corrective exercises for your lower back pain

Tired of seeing stretches that promise to fix your back pain but don’t?

Here’s why;

Your brain controls your muscles and movement. Muscles have no control of their own, they respond to what you’re brain tells them to do.

If you sit slumped over your laptop, day in day out, your brain adapts to this posture and teaches your muscles to stay tight in response to this posture habit.

In other words, our muscles habituate to whatever it is we do repeatedly. Therefore, if you suffer from muscular tension then its time to bring your brain to the conversation.

Here’s how.

Pandiculation; the alternate method to stretching (that actually works)

A 3-step process that reboots your brain’s control of your muscle tension.

1. A voluntary contraction into the tension of your muscles (only to the point that you notice your muscles tensing)
2. Follow by a slow, controlled lengthening
3. And a complete relaxation. This gives your...

Can your psoas muscle be negatively affecting your emotional wellbeing?

Let's be clear, I'm not suggesting that your psoas muscle is gonna start offering you advice about your relationship or career. What I am pointing to is the link between the current level of tension your psoas is holding and how relaxed you feel on a daily basis. And why I'm choosing a single muscle to for you to ponder on is for these reasons 

The psoas plays such 3 very important roles. Firstly the psoas joins the upper and lower body making it a major postural muscle as it flexes and side bends your upper spine.  Secondly, it's one of the main muscles recruited in walking. Thirdly the psoas attaches to the diaphragm, therefore, it has a role in how you breathe. 

"But has any of this got to do with my emotional wellbeing" I hear you ask? Let me explain by painting a picture. Think about the last time when you were upset or stressed. Can you picture your posture? Can you remember how you...

What's the one thing you do the most throughout your day?

If your answer is sitting and you suffer from hip tension then time to pay attention.

Due to lifestyle habits (note hours of sitting), injuries or surgeries you may have had, you have adopted a certain way of moving. Your brain has learnt that the way you move is normal whether or not this produces tension. You might seek help to treat symptoms like massaging, stretching or strengthening but too often these don't provide lasting relief.

The truth behind this disappointing outcome lies with you. It is you that has created these movement habits and only you who can undo them. This is the answer to the root cause of your hip pain.

The solution, learn how to overcome unconscious movement limitations by reawakening your brain to body control.  

The key to achieving this is to THINK. FEEL. MOVE.

THINK
Consider the impact your life's experience has had on your body.

FEEL

The most critical part, you have got...

Think of your body as a car. If you brought it to a mechanic and told them something was wrong with the steering alignment, do you think they would just investigate how the wheel turns? No. They'd dive under the bonnet and check out how the system of steering components are all working together or not.

This is exactly the same when looking at solving shoulder pain. Here's why.

Your shoulder girdle is made up of 2 components, your shoulder blades, collar bones. These bones connect your arms on each side. Your collar is attached to the top of your breast bone and your shoulder blades sit on the back of your rib cages. So when it comes to just stretching your shoulder muscles to alleviate tension can you see where the problem might be? There's a lot of things that have to work together in order to have smooth shoulder function that doesn't cause you pain.

But don't worry here's a beautiful sequence that targets all of your shoulder components in one go! This helps you get a clear...

Will yoga solve my back pain?

Maybe…. With the right guidance designed especially for your particular type of back pain. Yoga asana is a complex method that requires a great understanding of your body and the unique way you move it. As everybody is different, this requires a clear understanding of what movements are right for your body type.

How much, how far can be ok for one body but when it comes to back pain this is a completely different story. Hence why prescribed generic yoga poses are not the smartest way to go about eliminating your back pain.

Here’s why. Over 20 years of teaching yoga I’ve seen my fair share of different bodies and how their owners move them. When dealing with back pain without the guidance of an experienced teacher understanding how your body moves this leaves you trying to replace this knowledge. So if you don’t know what is aggravating your pain, how can you know how to solve it?

Makes sense right?

Another consideration is the...

When it comes to solving shoulder pain you gotta remember one important thing, it’s not just your shoulders that are creating your pain!

This is the very reason why stretching or massaging your poor achy shoulders is only a temporary solution. 

The answer to your pain is to look at your posture.

How your shoulders move in relation to your spine will give you all the information you need to know about why you are suffering from shoulder pain.

Let me explain why this is important. In short, your shoulder and your spine are connected, here’s how. Your upper arm bone (humerus) fits into the socket of your shoulder blade and your collarbone sits to the front of your scapula. Here’s the really important bit, as your shoulder blades sit on the back of your ribcage and your ribcages attached to your spine, any changes to your spine will affect the position of your shoulders. Get it?

And here’s the rub, a recent study to the link of shoulder pain and poor...

Stress is a natural part of life, and our response to it is an amazing survival advantage. Stress induces a fight-or-flight reaction in us. It compels us to act in a big way to overcome danger.

The problem in our modern world is; stress becomes chronic. When worrying about money, our goals, our families all day, we can feel trapped, and with time anxiety sets in. 

This can look like panic, overthinking and fear, but it can also be far subtler. Grinding teeth, headaches, back or muscle pain, and insomnia can all be signs that we're taking stress or trauma and repressing it. Storing it away in our bodies. 

I believe stress can be so destructive to our lives that should be targeted from all angles. 

As a world-class expert in Somatic Movement, that is always my first strategy.

I even have an entire course sharing exactly how to use movement to unlock and release stress and trauma that you've unknowingly locked in your body. 

But for many people, anxiety...

Stress is a natural part of life, and our response to it is an amazing survival advantage. Stress induces a fight-or-flight reaction in us. It compels us to act in a big way to overcome danger.

The problem in our modern world is; stress becomes chronic. 

No longer are we wary of literal lions, but mental ones. We can constantly worry about angered bosses, disappointed loved ones, failing to achieve lofty goals, or effort filled Instagram posts being met with cricket chirps. 

This is fear that does not dissipate. Day after day this inescapable fear can make us feel trapped and out of control. It can morph into difficult mental health issues such as anxiety.

General, social, post-traumatic anxiety, obsessive compulsions, these can all start to overtake your life if chronic stress goes unchecked. 

We may be so used to this stress, that we don't even realize it.

Irritable bowels, back pain, headaches, low energy, shallow breathing, poor posture, these can all be signs of...

Who has a back or problem, or stiff neck and shoulders? 

Yes, I thought so, me too, an ongoing ache, a dull pain and sometimes more constant when I’ve twisted the wrong way or exercised too hard. But most of us have neck and back pain because we sit at a computer or are hunched up and bending to look at a smartphone all day.

Hardly any of us find a cure from going to see a specialist, and if we do it tends to be temporary as old habits kick in and we find ourselves going through the same motions that got us there in the first place. What Align Somatics does is not only treat your problem but send you home with exercises that will eventually help to alleviate the problem altogether. Saving you many costly appointments and the frustration of knowing that your sessions with your chiropractor are ineffective 2 days after you feel slight relief of pain.

 What is Align Somatics?

Somatic Movement Education is teaching your mind to train your body to behave...

Tanya’s training gives her the ability to understand the underlying related movement and re-educate the person so that they can develop a more appropriate strategy for this movement. 

It does not need to sport specific.  Everything she teaches will improve one’s physical well-being.  It really is not necessary to live in pain but unfortunately there are very few teachers of Tanya’s ability that can analyze and cue clients successfully.  Working with someone who has the ability to communicate what you are doing wrong and how to improve it is a terrific experience. 

Somatics is the school of thought that Tanya teaches; however on the client side it is simply called common sense.  Now that I am pain-free I continue to go to Tanya’s classes as they will improve both my well-being and my cycling performance.

Pain and performance are directly related and once you unlock why you are on the back-foot you will go straight onto the...