Terre Pruitt's Blog

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Posts Tagged ‘back pain’

Opening Up The Back With A Stability Ball

Posted by terrepruitt on October 15, 2015

You might have read a few of my post where I say that my back is bothering me.  Well, one way I relieve the pain is by rolling it out on a foam roller.  I wrote about that in my post Rolled Out My Back Pain.  A bit ago, I did that method and it was not working.  I kept trying it and trying it.  It didn’t make sense that my back was not “cracking” back into place.  If you have ever had a pain, especially back pain, it might have had you thinking about it.  As you go through the day, it draws your attention because, well, it hurts.  So I was thinking about it and trying to examine it from a sensation perspective.  As I moved through the day it would bother me.  I began to get the feeling that it was compressed.  Whether my bones were compressing against each other causing the pain or the bones were pressing on a nerve or something, I don’t know.  In fact it has been so long ago that this happened, I don’t even remember what it felt like EXACTLY.  But my sense was that it was compressed.  That would have explained why rolling on it, trying to crack it and compress it more was NOT working.  It was not relieving the pain.  So then I thought, what if I expand it?  What if I open it up?  Ideally, an inversion table would be great!  But, I don’t have that.  I remember one time I tried hanging off of our breakfast room table but it is difficult to relax doing that.  The idea that the table is going to flip over does not help me relax.  I decided to try my stability ball.

It is a little smaller than would be optimum, but it works.  It takes a lot of concentration to be able to relax the upper part of my back – because that is where it felt jammed up – and not go so far as to allow my head to rest on the ground.  My stability ball is not that big.  I had bought a big one, but I traded it with my co-worker (at the time) because the one she bought was smaller.  The ideal size for a stability ball when you plan on doing exercises on it, is to be able to sit comfortably on it with feet on the ground and your thighs parallel to the ground.  Well, my knees were below my hips on the big one and her knees were higher than her hips and the switch allowed us the proper size.  So mine is perfect for sitting on and doing exercise, but it is not so great to lie prone on.

I did post a stretch where I lie on it on my back, Stability Ball Stretch.  Mine is a good size for that.  It is a good size for everything else, like I said, it is the right size, but just kinda small for hanging over it face down.

But it worked.  My back didn’t need to be cracked with pressure it needed to be opened up.  So now when I get a sense that my back is getting out of whack, I sleep with my roller.  I have a round one and a half round one.  But if my back hurts before I try the sleep relief, then I hang over the ball.  If that doesn’t work, then I roll on the foam roller.  To begin with, I try to be very careful because I don’t want to be in pain.  My wonderful friend that helped me with my back is gone so I need to make sure I don’t get to the point of needing her help.  I need to be able to “fix” it myself.  And not letting it get out of adjustment is the best help.

As I mentioned in my foam roller post, I am not recommending anyone do this because I don’t know your particular back situation . . . so I can’t say if this would be good for you or if it would help.  But I am saying, “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”  It helps me.  It is a different sensation than hanging over from the hips and letting your head help stretch your back.  The ball rounding out the back really seems to open it up.  And whatever was going on in my back, that did the trick!

Do you have a stability ball?  What do you use it for?

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Sleeping With A New Partner

Posted by terrepruitt on May 3, 2014

So I have a new bed partner.  One that my husband doesn’t actually mind me having.  Remember when I said my back was in pain, but it wasn’t muscle pain?  One day I couldn’t even lift my elbows up out to the side.  I was worried about how I was going to teach my Thursday morning Nia class.  Doing Nia and using the foam roller helped.  So I did a post about using a foam roller to roll it out so I would remember to use it.  Click HERE for that.  It worked great.  I had to roll it out or roll on the foam roller often, but it worked.  Then I started thinking . . . “Why is my back bothering me in the first place?”  I started paying attention.  I noticed that after I slept in a specific position was when my back hurt.  And that same position also hurt my shoulder.  I think my hips were being effected by this position too!  It is a cross between an on-your-side position and an on-your-stomach position.  Where I kind fold my upper body in half.  I came to the conclusion that I needed to stop folding in on myself.  I thought if I slept more on my side with my upper body “open” instead of the half-side-half- stomach-fold it might help.  So I am sleeping with my foam roller.

🙂  Yes, I know they make body pillows so that might work, but why get ANOTHER thing when I can use something I have?  Plus I think a pillow might be soft enough to still allow me to fold more than I want, whereas the roller keeps me propped up.  I don’t fold at all.  So I slept with my foam roller for a few nights and my back pain stopped.

So, now, I sleep on my side with my leg on the roller.  The roller keeps my hips more in alignment.  I say “more” because I don’t think they are IN alignment but more so than when I let my leg rest on the bed.  And I have the roller down low enough so that the arm on the side I am lying on has a place to be and I actually use the roller (almost the “top” of it) to keep my body propped up.  My “top” arm which rest on the roller doesn’t allow me to fold in on myself and rest my shoulder/arm on the bed.

Honestly the roller is not all that comfortable and so the hardness of it would keep me awake at first.  But not having my back hurt all day was worth it.  Plus the first few nights I would actually wake up a bit to move the roller to the other side when I switched sides.  Now . . . since my back feels better, if I want to turn over I have been leaving the roller only on one side.  I think that not folding over on at least one side is helping.

I am now using my foam roller as a preventative tool and not just a restorative tool.  Nice.

How do you sleep?  Do you have a lot of pillows?  Do you have a body pillow?  Do you wake up sometimes with a crick?  Do you wake up with pains in your shoulder(s)/hip(s)?

 

Posted in Foam Rollers | Tagged: , , , , , , | 14 Comments »

Rolled Out My Back Pain

Posted by terrepruitt on April 10, 2014

If you have read almost any of my posts you have heard me say that I use my blog as a recipe book and my reminder for things. So today I am writing myself a post about the foam roller. I know I have talked before about using tennis balls to roll out a muscle issue in my back. I actually used a different type of ball – like a huge super ball – because I don’t have any tennis balls, but it helped a lot.  This time it was not a muscle issue. And I am not necessarily recommending this as something you should do. I was a little nervous doing it myself, but I really was getting to the point where I couldn’t tolerate the pain any longer. I couldn’t move my head. Driving to teach my Nia class this morning I was doing the full torso twist as I changed lanes . . . I had to lift away from the seat and turn my whole torso because I could not comfortably turn my head. So I used my foam roller to roll out my back.

I believe sometimes stress is held in the body. I think that there is a little stress going on right now.  Ya think?  And I believe I am holding my stress of late in my back.  Normally, as I somewhat alluded too above, I might have stress held in the muscles, but this time it was more in my spine. I am more brave when it comes to muscles or connective tissue issues, but a little leery of trying to adjust my spine, but as I said, it was needed. So I laid down on the foam roller so that I could roll it down the length of my spine.

Now I want you to know that if you have back pain you should see a professional. A professional as in a doctor, a chiropractor, an osteopathic physician , etc. Someone that can treat you and your back. If you are familiar with your back issues and you feel comfortable doing this, that is up to you.

So I used it on my back as I did on my hamstrings in my post Roll Out The Hamstring.  But on my back I gingerly rolled on the roller. I started about mid-back,then rolled up, then down. I used my arms to support my weight a bit. Ahhhh, it was fantastic. I moved freely the rest of the day, which was great because I had a Gentle Yoga class to teach tonight.  I also did the vertical stretch shown in my first post about foam rollers, Foam Rollers are COOL!

Well, this might be something that might help you, again, I caution you.  But I know it will help me, but now I just have to remember and that is why I am posting it.  I definitely need a reminder for something occurring during this period of time.

Have you ever used a foam roller?  What do you use them for?  Do they help with massaging your muscles?

Posted in Foam Rollers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Simple Stretches Could Bring Relief

Posted by terrepruitt on May 12, 2012

We move our hips A LOT in Nia.  With all the hip movements we do I say we have juicy hips.  Not only do we shake and shimmy our hips we take time to stretch and open our hips.  Hip flexors are a group of muscles that move the thigh towards the chest.  These muscles can get short and tight, especially from sitting.  Office jobs usually mean sitting in a chair all day while at work.  Add the commute time to the sitting on the job and many people end up sitting over eight hours a day.  Sometimes the hip flexors can become so short and tight they can keep an individual from standing up straight.  In addition, the origin of one of the muscles in the hip flexor group is in the lower back, if this set of muscles is short and tight it can sometimes result in lower back pain.  For many individuals stretching and lengthening these muscles can bring relief from back pain and help individuals stand up straighter.

There are a lot of stretches that can help lengthen this group of muscles.  The yoga Pigeon Pose comes to mind.  This is a great pose because the leg that is straight out towards the back get the lengthening benefit and sensation, while the bent leg assist in opening the groin area and stretching those muscles.  The butterfly stretch really stretches the groin area, too.  The closer you can get your feet to your pelvis the bigger the stretch, and the close the knees to the ground the bigger the stretch.  This is a great stretch you will definitely feel in the inner thighs.  The spinal twist both supine and seated can bring great relief.  So whether you are laying down and allowing your legs to be on one side of you or whether you are sitting up with one leg out and hugging one bent knee, you still get a nice stretch for the pair of muscles whose origins starts in the lower back.

One stretch I love to do is somewhat like a spinal twist in that you let the legs twist to one side, but instead of bringing them over to one side as a pair you let one leg start its journey to the other side of your body and the other one follows in its own time.  Think of your legs as pages in a book.**  One leg goes then the other leg flips (as a page) slowly.  No rush.  Also if you allow one leg to fall to one side while the other is on the first side (think open book) it is similar to the butterfly stretch but with hips completely open.  Then “close the book” having your legs end up on one side while gently twisting to the other, you get the nice gentle stretch in your back.  In Nia our floorplay cycle often includes many of these.

Swinging your leg from front to back either in a standing position or lying down on your side can stretch the muscles.  Let the leg swing as far to the front as comfortable and then as far back as is comfortable.  In both the standing and lying position you want to keep you back straight.  Don’t let it get into the swing of things, just let your leg swing.

Some exercises can assist in stretching the muscles too.  The lunge, especially a long lunge, helps stretch and lengthen the muscles and open the hips a bit.  The leg that is stretch back with get the stretch in the front.  You can either do the lunge stepping forward or back, but the longer the step the bigger the stretch.

These are just some simple stretches that might help loosen up your hips if you have tight hip flexors.  If you tend to sit at a desk that could be something that is happening.  Make your hips juicy and happy by stretching them a bit.  It might even help you walk taller and with more ease.

**This image I learned from Debbie Rosas at my Nia White Belt Intensive. I use it all the time in class.

Do you ever sit so long when you stand up you kind of are bent over at the hips?

Posted in Exercise and Working Out | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Once You Go To A Chiropractor You Always Have To Go

Posted by terrepruitt on March 17, 2012

When I was younger I remember many people saying that “once you go to a chiropractor you always have to go”. Maybe you have heard that. I still hear people say that. Back when I was young I don’t think a lot of thought was given to that statement. I know I didn’t think about it much, I just had heard it so often I believed it was true. At one point in my life back then I considered myself to “have a bad back”. Being in so much pain once I found myself at a chiropractor. This was all a very long time ago so I don’t remember all the details. I guess they did SOMETHING to make me feel better because I left and must have felt ok. But before I left he prescribed something outrageous like I would need to visit him three or four times a week in order to take care of it. Again, fuzzy on the details, but I know I never went back to that guy. I do remember having medical insurance at the time that would pay for a portion of my visits if I visited a doctor on their list. So, I found one, I believe he was on the verge of retiring and was not interested in seeing people more than he really felt was necessary and he did not think I needed to be seen more than once a week. But I do remember that by the time my next appointment came around I was ready. I think my issue was, and still is, stress or tension.  I don’t have a “bad back”. I hold my stress in my upper back. Well, after I had seen a chiropractor I came to believe the saying “once you go to a chiropractor you always have to go” is true. It is because that once you go and you get relief then you always want to feel that good so you “have to go”. But now I also know that there are a lot of things we can do ourselves to either bring relief or make sure we don’t get in a state where we need it in the first place.

One of the things I was doing back then was holding the phone in the crook of my neck and shoulder when talking on the phone.  I worked in the mortgage business and like many businesses when you get a phone call you don’t stop working, you keep working because you are having to look at information while talking. After I had been to the doctor I decided I was not going to hold the phone like that any longer and every place I worked after that I got a headset. Ever since then I’ve had had headsets for my home phone, too.  That ONE thing alone brought HUGE changes in my back.  I never hold the phone in the crook of my neck and shoulder.

But occasionally I still allow the tension to rest in my back. I have been fortunate enough to have someone help me with my back when she is available, but she is not always available and so I try to work on it myself. As I said, I believe a lot of it is making sure we don’t allow our bodies to get into a state where it needs work, but that is not always possible, but there are still things we can do. If you have read a few of my posts you know I have a tendency to scrunch my shoulders up towards my ears. That is a major thing that causes my back to hurt, so I really work on keeping my shoulders down. Also, I work at sitting up straight, which is not easy for me because I like to sit on a leg folded under me.

Aside from plain ol’ not doing things that cause issues I have been doing some things that tend to help my back by keeping the muscles loose and the vertebrae lengthened and relaxed. Often the floorplay in Nia helps with keeping my back loose, but the Nia routine that I have been doing the past few weeks does not have that type of floorplay in it so I am doing other things.  My old friend the Downward Facing Dog is a great help for opening the back and releasing the spine. Doing the Downward Facing Dog at least a dozen times as part of a sequence is a great help in keeping my back loose.

Also the Pyramid Pose/Intense Stretch Pose (Parsvottanasana), which I mentioned in my Muscles Used In Nia During Yoga-like Sequence post. When stretching the crown of the head out and over it really does a great job of creating space in the spine. Since my discomfort seems to manifest in my upper back, moves or poses that have me hanging over do a fantastic job of opening my cervical and thoracic spine.

Another “hanging” pose that I feel does a nice job of relaxing my joints and muscles is the simple fold. Just folding over and letting the body hang. Either the ragdoll or the forward fold. Doing both types of hangs, with a relaxed back and a straight back, works to create the sensation that I want – space, space, space, and more space in my spine. The space in my spine helps to relax the muscles that hold the tension.

As I was doing some side bends today, I actually heard my back crack. On each side I heard it crack. While I am not a fan of hearing my body snap, crackle, and pop, I take my back making that noise as the vertebrae getting back into place. When I can move my bones back into place and not have someone else do it, that makes me happy. It is what I have come to think of as self-healing. One of the side bends I have been doing consist of bending to the side while holding my arms over my head with my hands clasps. The other is holding my wrist as I bend.

So I am excited that I am working on my back myself. I have to say that I have not had back pain, tension, or even discomfort in the last two weeks. Yay. I know that I am not the only one that holds stress and tension in the back. So I was hoping sharing some of the things I have been doing to give me relief might help you too.

Do you have issues with your back? Do you hold stress in your back? What do you do to bring yourself and your back relief from your discomfort?

Posted in Nia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »