Hello,
I read Ester's book back in 2015, have practiced her methods since and have returned to the book often whenever I feel the need for a refresher! Despite my work, over the last few years I have developed increasing back spasm whenever I go into flexion. Sometimes it makes sense, flexing over quickly to pick up my dog and not hinging, but more concerningly, when I roll over in bed and go into flexion temporarily, or when I am lazy and flex my back in the car and try to get back into a healthy posture. Sometimes the spasms are crippling and take me out for a week, but most of the time they are just quick spasms.
It appears that my body has forgotten how to go into flexion. The way I interpreted the book, especially the chapter on hiphinging and exercising, was that a rounded back should be avoided when bending over and doing ab work. So I never flexed, and now when it happens naturally, I often into spasm in my QL area.
Everyday movement involves flexion of the lower spine as well as extension, and I am afraid that I demonized flexion to the extent that my brain kind of freaks out when it happens.
Any advice? I would say that I have an anteverted pelvis that tends slightly more toward ATP when I get sloppy....
Thanks!
Juliet
22 hours 57 min ago
11/03/2015 - 2:37am
Hi Juliet. I'm so sorry to hear about your spasms. If it's sometimes taking you out for a week, it's unlikely to be purely muscular and I suspect some compression is occurring due to insufficient length in your spine before/during flexion. My advice is to make sure you are stretchsitting and stretchlying as often as possible, and using inner corset to protect your spine during activity (including bending, which would help you avoid ATP too). Let me know how you go, as we would like you to be able to perform any sort of action in a way that doesn't cause pain :)
Warm wishes,
Tegan Kahn, Gokhale Method Teacher, Australia