back pain

The Gokhale Method® is designed to be, well, methodical. But although the process of learning healthy posture is mostly systematic and progressive, it is also usually punctuated by “aha moments”. These glimpses of intellectual, visual, and kinesthetic understanding of the body can arrive like the warm glow of returning to home ground, or they can be seismic shifts that change your life forever…

You’ve tweaked your back. It may be a stabbing pain that catches with certain movements, it may be that you cannot straighten up, or maybe it’s an electrical, nervy sensation in your buttock.  

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” is thought to originate from an ancient African proverb. As I have grown into being a parent, uncle, and beyond, I have realized that this quote extends to any age. I have directly experienced this with my own posture journey—my own family “village” has helped me and others dear to me find a near pain-free life through the Gokhale Method®. My Story: Annoying Body Pains Were Affecting My Fun In Life In my late thirties, a stream of inflammatory pains permeated my body, including back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, and—worst of all—plantar fasciitis in my foot. While these weren't absolutely crippling pains, they were painful enough to keep me from enjoying life as I gave up my favorite hobbies—tennis, golf, and playing the piano. I visited numerous renowned doctors in California. They genuinely tried to help, but nothing resolved my pain. So I began searching for other solutions. The Key Find: Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back In 2012 I bought Esther’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, as it was highly recommended on Amazon.

I developed excruciating lower back pain in 2001. I was a tennis player, downhill skier, and a marathon runner. I was also under a lot of financial pressure in a stressful job as a consumer class action lawyer.  My doctor diagnosed me with a  herniated disc at L4-L5. He said that a piece of my disc was sitting on the nerve. I tried everything to stop my pain but nothing worked. In January 2002 I underwent a  laminectomy which removed some of the vertebral bone next to the herniation to make room for the nerve root.

This is our fourth blog post in the series where we put popular home exercises under scrutiny to examine how they stack up—or not—against the principles of healthy posture. In this post we are looking at head rotations/circling, an exercise that is often suggested to ease stiffness and mobilize the neck. Neck pain—causes and solutions Although not often considered in physical fitness and exercise regimens, the neck frequently becomes a problematic area for people in our culture. At that point, we look to mobilizing, stretching, and strengthening exercises to alleviate pain and stiffness.   

Many back pain interventions could be described as having a single, dominant approach: cortisone injections into inflamed tissue, insertion of acupuncture needles to open flow in meridians, “adjustments,” medications for reducing pain, etc. Of course, each of these interventions has complexity and nuance in theory and practice, but the vast majority of existing interventions have a single focus. To put it somewhat crassly, they could be described as one-trick ponies. And I’ve wondered if this is perhaps related to why most approaches to back pain are so ineffectual. What sets the Gokhale Method apart?

 

Anissa Morgan is 46 years old and was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. In her own words, her relationship with her body has “always been a little messed up.” She didn’t like how she looked. Growing up, her mom frequently told her that she was slouching and "should pull her shoulders back," anecdotal posture advice many of us have heard.

In adulthood, Anissa spent some time in the Army Reserves as a petroleum specialist. The military approach to posture reinforced what she’d heard from her mom in childhood: that she “shouldn’t be slouching and that everything should look ‘a certain way.’” In her job, she would deliver fuel to military vehicles such as airplanes, cars, and trucks. She

Posture and pregnancy have always been closely linked for me. As you may know, my own journey to create the Gokhale Method and a life free of back pain began with my development of crippling back pain during pregnancy. So it’s always a special gift to get to connect with other mothers who understand the deep relationship between posture and health, and to help other women learn to navigate the many changes that come with pregnancy and childbirth.

That’s why I’ve teamed up with MommaStrong to bring you this discussion between me and Courtney Wyckoff, the founder of MommaStrong. She’s a Certified Personal Trainer and Corrective Exercise Specialist, with 16 years experience in the field of

Studying and teaching yoga has been part of my life for several years. However, after learning the Gokhale Method, I approached the well-known yoga posture “downward-facing dog” (Adho Mukha Svanasana) in a new way.
 

Hip-hinging with my even spinal groove visible — GOOD! Image courtesy Cecily Frederick.

In the Gokhale Method Foundations Course, I learned how to hip-hinge and keep my spine from flexing when bending. I wanted to maintain about the same spinal shape in my “downward-facing dog” pose as I had learned when hip-hinging. This spinal shape, with an even spinal groove from the lower to the upper back, meant that my intervertebral discs, nerve roots and spinal ligaments would be protected

Cecilia* didn’t expect to develop disabilities in her early 40s. She had led an active life, working as an academic in a competitive field and enjoying intense activities such as rock climbing, camping, hiking, kayaking, Iyengar yoga, Crossfit, and running. She even flew glider planes for fun. In her own words, she has an “extreme personality” — she pushes herself hard in life and seeks out challenging situations, whether working or playing.

 

Cecilia describes herself as an “extreme personality” and once enjoyed such intense outdoor pastimes as rock climbing, among others. This all changed once she began a law degree and bar exam preparations. Photo courtesy Brook Anderson on Unsplash.

 

Cecili