Spinal flexion is the movement of forward bending or rounding your spine similar to Halloween cat. If you think that you are in the clear because you avoid all feline movements in the AM, note that bending over to pick up the morning paper, put on your pants or put on your shoes all qualify as spinal flexion. This movement at any time of day puts a great amount of load on the low back. During sleep, the tissues in our body become stiff and our intervertebral discs become more hydrated. This is a state that is not ready for a lot of bending because there is too much tension in the supporting ligaments, tendons and muscles. This, coupled with the stress that flexion puts on our back increases our risk for injury, instability and pain.
If you exercise or do specific flexion movements in the morning, do some light walking and allow your body about an hour to prepare for those movements. You might even consider changing your workout regimen so that those movements are done late in the day. If forward bending is a must, such as putting on shoes, bend at your knees and minimally in your low back so that your back is in the safest position possible.
3 comments:
Thank you for this advice. I will think twice about my automatic morning actions before performing them tomorrow.
I have another question regarding morning spine:
Is it bad to run right after waking up? I get up, get dressed, walk for about 5 minutes, lightly stretch my legs muscles and then run between 20 and 60 minutes (depending on the week day). I run in the position prescribed by most instruction videos like Chi Running. Do the stiffness and hydration you are talking about create bad conditions for running?
And while I`m at it, there is something I would like to ask about spine stiffness in general:
I am unable to round my back like that Halloween cat. However I have no problem arching it. I was a mildly active kid, riding bicycles and occasionally swimming up until age 18. The first activity that really worked my flexibility was gymnastics at 18. Most parts of my body became flexible in no time but my back never could round up like a cat. One incident maybe worth mentioning: at age 9 I hit my head at the bottom of a pool and I suffered stiff upper back for a while and my mom took me to a chiropractor who told me 2 of my vertebrates at the height of my shoulders had moved slightly. He attempted some twists on my body. Not sure what good that did.
I have been doing yoga for 6 years and I`m generally doing quite well but here`s more information that may or may not relate to my stiff back: When I stand straight my head is slightly forward compared to the rest of my spine. I often get bad shoulders/upper back muscles freezes where I can`t turn my head left. Doctors and massage people say it`s because the weight of my head is putting pressure on these muscles while I`m on the computer ( 50h per week ) .
Ok, that`s a lot of info. Any pointer will be appreciated.
Alexis
Lots of questions!
Any activity upon rising is probably not the best idea. If you were to do some light walking for longer than 5 minutes prior to your run, it would be much healthier.
The movement in our spine should ideally be very fluid and even. Not many of us have equal movement in our spine unless we practice it. You mention that you are able to extend your back or arch your back quite well but that rounding your back in the opposite direction is quite difficult. In short, it sounds like you have too much mobility in one part of your spine and not enough in the other. (Of course, I can't see you, only hear what you are describing.) Noting your movement and your described posture (head forward), I can already imagine that you would benefit greatly from doing stabilizing movements for your core, extension exercises for your upper and middle spine and other postural exercises that allow you to sit correctly when spending so much time at the computer.
Yoga should be helping you with the things that I have listed above. One difficult thing about our yoga practice is that if we don't have a good teacher to help us correct our postures and positions, it is likely that the things that we do during the day are also manifesting themselves in our yoga practice. Thus, your yoga could actually be enhancing some of the problems that you have discussed.
Of course I would love to help more. Email me at sarah@experiencesage.com and we can chat or set up an appointment time to start to chip away at some of these issues.
I just realized you replied to my question. Thanks very much for this information. It's true the yoga studio I go to does not offer individual attention. I will start exploring other studios that have better one on one interaction.
Thank you for your help!
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