The top 10 excercises and streches for the office worker
By Cary Raffle*
Whether you've been lifting weights for years, playing sports, competing in marathons and triathlons, playing basketballs or soccer, or just starting out, most of you face the same challenge: transitioning from sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day to physical activity. (The same goes for many other occupations—cops, cab drivers, pilots, and judges are a few examples of people who tend to sit a lot face similar issues.
Proper conditioning can help avoid injuries, improve performance, and deliver better results. How? By correcting the postural distortions and muscle imbalances that office work creates.
How Hip FLEXORS can contribute to your Low Back Pain
DO Joseph M. Will
We are very lucky in SANAR to have a large percentage of patients who play sports, go to the gym or practice yoga on a regular basis. The population of young, healthy and active people in this town is quite large and it is a JOY to work with them.
However often times these people come to us frustrated because they begin to suffer pain in the low back during their workday IN SPITE of the fact that they are exercising so hard to stay healthy.
The problem many times is the lack of proper stretching and the fact that many of these “weekend warriors” are SITTING down in their jobs for many hours which allows the hip flexor “Iliopsoas” muscle to adopt a chronically shortened state. Lets take a closer look at how the huge and powerful ILIOPSOAS muscle can alter the biomechanics of the pelvis and lumbar spine and cause lumbalgia.
We have examined previously in other articles the primary EXTENSOR muscles of the leg which is the GLUTEAL group of muscles. Regarding pelvic stability, there is a constant “tug of war” between the GLUTS and the strongest FLEXOR of the hip joint, the Iliopsoas, which is the ANTAGONIST of the gluts.
The Iliacus originates on the pelvic crest and attaches on the femur. The Psoas Major, the longer of the two muscles, originates on the lumbar vertebrae and attaches to the femur.
Overdeveloped and tight hip flexors usually contribute to lower back pain by causing the pelvis to tilt forward which in effect increase the lumbar lordosis dramatically. This HYPEREXTENSION of the lumbar facet joints is PAINFUL (just like pulling backwards on your finger sends pain signals to the brain) and stimulates the large (and usually overworked) low back muscles, called Quadratus Lumborum, to go into a painful and debilitating spasm. At THIS point the patient usually comes to our office seeking relief. Of course, we treat the low back spasm but we must also reduce the iliopsoas contraction if we want to truly fix the problem.
To counteract this, you must stretch the hip flexors and tonify (strengthen AND train yourself to efficiently use) the Abdominal muscle group. This will reduce pelvic tilt and excessive lumbar lordosis. We highly recommend to patients to purchase the inexpensive, very useful and fun EXERCISE balls for tonificatin of the abs (AKA PHYSIO or PILATES).
Below is just ONE example of a simple PSOAS therapeutic stretch that you should include in your daily regimen.
There are many ways to stretch the PSOAS muscle but we must be sure not to hyperextend the lumbo-sacral junction during the stretch by trying to maintain a straight plumb line between the chest and knee. Try to “feel the burn” in the top half of the thigh and ideally up into the inguinal and abdominal region as well. I feel the stretch best when I gently turn my upper body and face AWAY from the side I am stretching.
The Iliopsoas and the Hip Vascular-Compression Theory
Warren Hammer, MS, DC, DABCO
Besides being related to the spine and lower extremity, a tight, shortened iliopsoas muscle can be related to hip problems, particularly to the hip's circulation and eventual degeneration.
The femoral head has a unique circulation because the blood vessels that supply the epiphyseal, metaphyseal and ligamentum teres are beneath the capsule surrounding the hip. The vessels are covered by loose folds of synovial membrane, and to reach the femoral head, the vessels must travel almost the entire length of the neck between the capsule and bone.
During this long course, the vessels are exposed and relatively unprotected against increased hydrostatic pressure within the strong inelastic capsule.1 It becomes apparent that anything which increases the pressure within the capsule will have an adverse effect and cause pain. Tightness of the hip capsule can create an increase in the intra-articular pressure. High pressure within the hip capsule creates high intra-osseous venous pressure, due to blockage of flow in the peri-articular veins, so that hemodynamic changes in the bone marrow are secondary to high pressure within the capsule.2
Many people come into the office with their “self-diagnosis” already in hand. They have pain in the low back, often longstanding, and now some pain radiating into the gluteal region and back of the leg. We´ve all heard so much about disc herniations and sciatica that immediately we fear the worst. But in many cases these symptoms are NOT representing a TRUE sciatica (caused by disc herniation, stenosis of the spinal canal, spondylolisthesis etc) and, although the pain can be very severe, the patients prognosis is for an easier and faster recovery.
Its important to understand that when a muscle stays contracted for long periods of time it isn’t receiving a proper irrigation of blood. All the fibers are hyper tense and many of the small aterioles are not able to supply the muscles cells. So we end up with muscle cells that are not receiving as much nutrients and oxygen and, more importantly, are building up waste product (like lactic acid) which, in excess quantity, is toxic for the cell.
As most of you know, lactic acid buildup is the cause of the burning fatigue we feel after heavy exertion (marathons, weight training etc) and in focal concentrations will cause the famous “trigger points” that good massage therapists seem to find immediately when you lay down on the table. This pain CAN and DOES radiate into the buttock and lateral thigh and many times is misinterpreted as True Sciatica.
Neural Therapy involves the use of procaine injections to restore normal nerve function by reducing the instability of the autonomic nervous system as a whole, thus making it less sensitive to harmful stimuli.
Procaine has been called king of medicines because of its ability to restore normal function to damaged tissue by RESETTING the nerves that supply it so that they can send the proper amount of impulses to the tissues and organs they innervate.
Technically and electrically speaking, the nerves can often become HYPERPOLARIZED or over excited due to continued stress (physical, electrochemical, emotional) and the use of simple, diluted procaine acts to RESET the amount of electrical potential (aka voltage)and return the nerves´ cell membrane to its normal, balanced resting state. As such, we can say that procaine has a regulatory effect on cell membranes protecting its electrostatic processes and general integrity.
When we use neural therapy in Sanar many times we are concentrating mostly on the beneficial effects that Procaine has in situations of chronic muscle contraction where the involved muscle is receiving constant, erroneous over-stimulation by its corresponding motor nerve. These chronic contractions with the associated buildup of cellular waste products, primarily lactic acid, are well known as TRIGGER POINTS and almost always accompany ANY musculo-skeletal pain syndrome / vertebral subluxation complex.
Whether you've been lifting weights for years, playing sports, competing in marathons and triathlons, playing basketballs or soccer, or just starting out, most of you face the same challenge: transitioning from sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day to physical activity. (The same goes for many other occupations—cops, cab drivers, pilots, and judges are a few examples of people who tend to sit a lot face similar issues.
We are very lucky in SANAR to have a large percentage of patients who play sports, go to the gym or practice yoga on a regular basis. The population of young, healthy and active people in this town is quite large and it is a JOY to work with them.
Neural Therapy involves the use of procaine injections to restore normal nerve function by reducing the instability of the autonomic nervous system as a whole, thus making it less sensitive to harmful stimuli.