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The Musculo-skeletal
Risk Factor profile looked at a range of parameters
including mobility, strength and flexibility and whether people are
training to keep themselves strong and flexible.
The
musculo-skeletal risk factor profile is comprised of a mix of 9
objective and 3 subjective assessments.
•
Current musculo-skeletal condition
• Age
•
Closeness to ideal weight
•
Abdominal strength test
•
Upper body strength test
•
Flexibility
• Functional mobility – the ability to sit down and stand up with
ease of
movement.
• Shoulder function
•
Involvement in a regular and systematic strength training program
• Involvement in a regular and systematic flexibility training
program.
THE EPIDEMIC
There's an absolute epidemic of
musculo-skeletal dysfunction in the community. At least 30% of the
people we regularly survey attest to having some sort of dysfunction
that bothers them.
THE CAUSE
Yep, you're right. Sitting down is the killer and here's why.
If you were to sit down at work, on the floor with your legs straight
out you probably wouldn't get a crook lower back and sore shoulders
because the muscles of the calves and hamstrings would stay their normal
length. However, after sitting down in a chair for more than 20 years,
the pelvis is dragged backwards by ever tightening calf, hamstring and
buttock muscles.
Other tight muscles around your buttocks twist the pelvis or drags one
side lower than the other.
Tightness and weakness of muscles on the lower half of
your body produce collateral damage in the upper part of your body.
The bones of your vertebrae immediately above
the pelvis become the meat in a very painful sandwich. They become
twisted, out of position. They pull on ligaments, tendons and muscles (hence the pain) and
force disks 'out'. If the disks pinch the spinal column it hurts like
hell. If they hit the sciatic nerve you get sciatica.
The hollow in lumbar spine disappears. The nice 'S' shaped curve of the
back has become a 'C' shape.
So, here's what I suggest you do.
If you don't have a CrookBack Clinic close by, I suggest you join a
yoga class and go three times a week.
Make sure when you're sitting at your desk your chair is as close to the
desk as you can get it. That way you'll be encouraged to situp straight
with a hollow in your lumbar spine. Once you lose the hollow you're
in big strife!
Buy my ebook,
How to Fix up a Crook Back and make sure you do the
following exercises religiously.
Buy Pete Egoscue's books, the Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion
and Pain Free They're great books and will provide you with an
explanation of what's gone wrong. Just go back to
backpainbooks.com
SIX PRINCIPLES of better musculo-skeletal function
1. The problem has a cause and it can be fixed - find the cause and
treat it.
2. Big problems come from small problems that weren't attended to. If
it's a big problem now, it probably started off as a little problem that
wasn't recognised or dealt with early enough.
3. The primary cause of the pain is likely to be a lack of fitness, a
body lacking in the general level of strength and flexibility needed to do what
may appear to be a very simple and cushy job - sitting down, tapping as
keyboard, rolling as mouse and pushing a pen.
4. The immediate cause of the pain is a body out of alignment. If you do
the right strength and flexibility exercises you should be able to
straighten out the problem
5. It's a big ask expecting the body to get better by having someone do
something to you: sooner or later you have to do something to yourself -
in your case the right mobilising, stretching and strengthening
exercises for your particular condition.
6. Therapy - ice, heat, manipulation, massage, acupuncture, Chinese
poultice ..., speeds
up the rehab process but does not take the place of the strength and
flexibility exercises you need to do for yourself.
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