Sebastian Brosche · 13 min · 1,488 words
Previously titled: Video 4 - Back Pain Program
Hi guys and welcome back to the fourth session in the Back Pain Week. You need some kind of pillow because I've heard a lot of complaints about people that have no chance of squatting. For me squatting is super easy, for some people this is completely impossible. So what you can do is place a pillow between your thighs like this and you can even sit leaning against the wall like this.
And if you can do 30 seconds and you need to rest, do that and then repeat and repeat and repeat. But I want you to find a way to squat that actually works. So you can use something between your thighs like I'm doing. You can also place something under your heels and it's okay to lean forward like this with your hands forward.
You don't have to sit with all the weight in the feet. You can sit with your hands forward and you can squat down like this and lean your butt to the wall and just go as low as possible. But find a squatting position because when you squat down and you round your spine forward like this, this is a very nice release for the lower back because we are monkeys. We are hairless monkeys but we are monkeys and this is monkey position number one.
When the monkey sits on the ground, this is how we're built to sit. We're not built for chairs. We are built to squat. So when we squat, it's actually a forward fold.
So look at the difference between this one and this one. It's just the hamstrings. So this is a forward fold when you take hamstrings out of the picture. So if you have back pain, it is highly unlikely that this is going to provoke more back pain.
So if you can find a way to squat that doesn't hurt knees and where nothing is falling asleep, do it for as long as you can, take a break and come back to it because you can't overdo the squat. It's not possible to squat too much. So get used to it because it's so healthy for the lower back to lower the ass to the grass as they say and have the weight both forward and backward and side to side. But just have a really low body weight like this is really nice for the lower back and upper back.
Of course, if you like to do variations, you can stretch your shoulders like this. You can interlace the fingers behind your back. You can do side stretches by grabbing your ankle and doing stuff like this. You can go your feet wider or point your toes forward to get a knee stretch.
You can really go from side to side like this. But try to stay in the squat for as long as you can. Take a rest on all fours and then get back to it. Squat squat squat can't squat enough.
Take five more here. And sit down on your butt. The next thing I'm going to show you is a bit controversial because it might hurt like hell and it might be the best thing ever. So if you take something, I have nothing.
So I'm just going to roll my mat up to a tiny little roll. The more you roll it, the more intense it's going to be. And place this roll under a part of your spine that like choice free any any part of your spine, the lower back far down is probably not so nice, but somewhere along where the ribs are. Place the roll or the thing under you there.
Knees together, arms overhead. And if this is not enough, you might roll up a gi or a blanket or something thicker and place so that you get a passive backbend. So we're bending our back backwards without using any energy. So you're trying to like drape over and melt or your object.
And again, this might hurt like hell. Don't do it. Skip and do the next pose instead. And this might just be exactly what your back needs right now.
If you have a suitable pillow like I do, you might put the pillow lengthwise like this as well. But you're trying to kind of elevate your chest bone so that your head is low and your hips are low, but your chest is high. So you're easily provoking a backbend. Take a couple of minutes here and relax.
If you need a variation with the legs, do a triangle like this. Maybe interlace your fingers behind your head. There's so many variations that feel slightly different from the other. Again, our objective here is to teach our back, convince our back that we're not going to hurt it.
We're not going to be stupid again. You're going to have discipline and patience and get more symmetrical and more balanced so that the spine doesn't take the punishment for something someone else should have done. One of your muscles were supposed to do their job. They didn't.
So your back had to suffer. So the back is pissed off and resentful towards the rest of the body who didn't do their job. You kind of have to be a negotiator and be diplomatic and like, hey, it's okay. Shit happened, but let's team up again and work together and not let this shit happen again.
That's what you're trying to do. Take another minute. Lift your hips and remove the thing from under you. Lay down flat on your back.
Now let's do a tiny bridge pose. So just like when you're bridging to escape the mount, what you want to do different now is just that you grab your own waist and push the fingers in as deep as you can and then use your core to push the fingers back out. So just as if someone were going to drop a heavy medicine ball on top of your core, engage the six pack and everything else and lift the hips up. I don't want you to splay your ribs open and just push your hips up here because that's going to jam your back.
I want you to squeeze your knees together and engage your soft parts here like crazy. So tense up the front, tense up the back and lift the hips. Just take one breath and lower down, legs up. Bicycles.
We're going to go slow. Feet down, engage your core. Start by lifting your hips and then you roll one by one vertebra up as high as you can and then roll down. Legs up, bicycles.
Go again. Feet in, roll the tailbone up, the lower back, the middle back, the upper back. Engage the core, squeeze the lowest part of your butt and roll all the way down, bicycles. Keep going like this.
Bridge pose, lifting up slowly, teaching your spine that this is okay. Rolling all the way down, bicycles. And lifting up again. Engage your core.
At any moment someone is going to punch you in the belly. That's what you want to have in mind. You should not be relaxed and comfortable in your core. Engage the core.
They can come attack from any direction to your belly. So engage as much as you can. Keep rolling up and down. Next time you're all the way up, stay there for five to ten breaths.
So lift up. Keep engaging your side and your front and your butt. Your glutes might be underdeveloped or overworked, which means if you can relax them and tense them up consciously, they're going to do the job that the lower back has been doing. So if you're exhausted in your lower back, it might be because you have used your glutes too much or too little.
Lower down, legs up. Take a few breaths with the legs up. If you want to finish today's class by placing your legs up the wall again for ten to fifteen minutes, please go ahead. Or rock up to seated.
If you have one of these pillows, I'm going to give you a pro tip. Sleep like this. Have the pillow in the bed and go to sleep with your knees bent like this, because this is such a release for the spine. Instead of laying flat, you can lay like this.
And if you have back problems, especially lower back problems, that's going to help a lot. You can also use it like a pregnancy pillow. You lay down on the side and you place the pillow between the knees. It's also very nice for the spine.
It really helped me a lot to have a yoga pillow, a bolster, when I slept, when I had back problems. See you tomorrow for the last class. Us!
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