Cure Your Back Pain

First, let us consider some of the facts.

Most pain is felt in the joints or the point where a muscle attaches to the bone. With the back for example, it is the lower joints that seem to be much more susceptible to pain than the ones higher up, although the upper back is by no means excluded.

The joints are the one place where an imbalance can manifest because they can be tilted or twisted. What happens to the nerve, ligament or disc as a result of that joint moving is the pain you normally feel.

What I have discovered in practice is that there are usually only one or two main groups of muscles, setting up the imbalances and causing the joint to move or the pressure to build up on a muscle making it stiff or tight and painful to move.

If the muscles that set up this twist (usually structural muscles) are worked on correctly, the pressure that causes the twist, tilt or tightness is released, along with the pain.

Using a 'hands on' form of bodywork is the most effective way of identifying and correcting these problem muscles but finding someone who can do a good job quickly and effectively, and without it costing the earth is probably the most difficult part.

When a back develops problems it is not normally something that has just happened but rather a build up of imbalances over time. It tends to involve the whole body in some way and
therefore requires a holistic approach to get a lasting cure.

There are not enough skilled hands on therapists these days that can recognize the problem muscles and then know how to restore their length and function and put the body back into balance again as is required. Too many therapists want to use machines or stretching and exercise to fix back pain and these methods are flawed in many ways as we'll discover.

Lets face it, if they worked I wouldn't need to be writing this book as people would get over their problem as quickly as it came.

Without using the hands on approach and the fact that most causes of back pain don't show up on x rays or scans, therapists are guessing as to what the problem is most of the time.

Unless they are skilled at working on the body using their hands they can't monitor progress or feel compensations that need to be removed, but just as importantly they can't recognise when the problem does not involve the muscles and may require totally different approach.

I know I could never have learnt what I have without putting my hands on the body.

Due to the repetitive nature of bodywork and the fact that the basic anatomy of the body never changes, you are constantly learning how every different type of body feels, strong, healthy, weak, stressed, young or old. Believe it or not you can even get a clue to what a person eats and their personality from the feel of their tissue.

Any therapist who doesn't get their hands on the body regularly such as a GP/doctor, physiotherapist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, Pilates or yoga instructor etc, is severely handicapped right from the start when it comes to treating back pain. There is no way, without the vital information you get from the feel of the body, they could devise the best way of approaching a particular person's back problem.