Exercise and Spinal Health

There are various reasons to exercise. Some do it to get leaner and lose weight, reduce stress, socialize, get out in nature, and others do it to have fun.

When doing any exercises, here are some considerations:

Exercise is most beneficial when done properly, consciously, and when all of the foundation muscles working together. For example, imagine going to see an orchestra where the woodwind instruments decide not to play. The sound of the music wouldn’t be harmonic.

The advice we are almost always given by some ‘expert’ in back pain is ‘exercise.’ The first question that you should ask yourself is: are you exercising in a stable or unstable environment? Would you drive your car if its alignment were off? You probably wouldn’t, because it would cause uneven tire wear and, ultimately, ball joint erosion.

• One should exercise to develop proper movement patterns to the point that every daily activity is a conscious movement pattern in which the body is actively engaged. For example, many years ago, I had the opportunity to watch the world’s top tennis player train at UCLA. When this particular character missed a shot, he would stop and visualize his mistake at least a dozen times in his head before proceeding back to his game. The people watching stated that this behavior was dramatic and excessive. But was it? Perhaps your exercise can be performed the same way. Strengthening your body with proper mechanics consciously over a long period of time may lead, ultimately, to the development of subconscious movement patterns in which the body is actively and consciously engaged.

So What Can We Understand From This?

• Exercise should ultimately require no volition on your part. Repetitive conscious movement patterns should ultimately lead to subconscious proper harmonic activities in everything that you do from walking the dog to sitting at a lecture.

• Exercise alone cannot undue bad posture. Even if people meet the current recommendation of 30 minutes of physical activity on most days each week, there may be significant adverse metabolic and health effects from prolonged sitting or complacent poor postures which dominate most people’s remaining ‘non-exercise’ waking hours.

If you are interested in learning more about this subject check out my article ‘It’s lack of movement not lack of exercise…‘

Some Other Solutions

We have a number of potential solutions that are specially designed to deal with this little known nervous system problem.

• • The Foundation – A portable posture correction device designed to exercise core muscles while sitting.
  • Reboot – Scientists say it is actually a non-exercise movement, the mere change in posture every 15 minutes or so, is a major influence in avoiding these chronic problems. So, the solution is simple: REBOOT! We, at The Spinery, invented a fun reminder that makes you do just that.
  • The Fitzwilliam – The Fitzwilliam Natural Latex Mattress Ergonomically and orthopedically designed in Dublin, Ireland to give you amazing support and a great nights sleep.
  • The Dream Pillow – “Not your grandfather’s pillow. The most innovative and comfortable pillow we’ve ever seen”
    • With its incredibly supportive and unique shape, there are simply no other pillows with this level of design, innovation, and craftsmanship. We tried to make the pillow out there to get a great night’s sleep.
  • Our book – Rethinking Posture in the Modern World
    • Outlines a simple guide to analyze posture and correct it.  Good posture should be equal with brushing your teeth.
    • Explains how to adapt more primal movement patterns to strengthen and correct posture.
    • Encourages the use of ACE (Active Conscious Engagement) with easy-to-follow strategies while sitting, standing and exercising. This is by actively transferring the stress off your spine, discs, and joints to your core muscles so that you will be ‘exercising’ all day.

Also, if you enjoyed this article you should check out these other articles on other shocking affects of bad posture.

• Is The Nervous System Disrupted by Poor Posture?
• The most amazing pillow in the world!
• Are we becoming a smartphone zombie?
• Practical guide on how to sit, sleep and move for everyone.
• Simple solution for anyone who sits too much.

– Lawrence Woods