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How to Stay Pain Free
Health | May 28, 2015
Why Postural Therapy
The reason why I started posting postural therapy routines in the ZGYM is not just because I had a serious back problems myself and became interested in this method after I managed to heal myself. The main reason is the incredible amount of comments, emails, and personal encounters with people that have been dealing with some type of physical pain. I think we live in a time where staying active throughout the day is becoming more and more difficult. Most of us have sedentary jobs. We now spend more time sitting in the car driving, instead of waking like our grandparents used to. This lack of movement is contributing to the wide spread problem with chronic pain. Even the best athletes, no matter how strong and talented they are have been dealing with the same issues in terms of their posture, just like the rest of us. Postural therapy is basically series of exercises that will help you to put your musculoskeletal system back into it’s natural and functional design. It will help you to get rid of not just the symptoms such as pain or lack of mobility, but also the cause of the symptoms which is important in the long run. The result of postural therapy is a highly functional, pain free body that is ready for it’s peak performance.
Why staying consistent
One of things that so many people don’t get when it comes to postural therapy is that it’s a work that’s never done. You can’t do the routines for a week or a month and expect your body to stay in neutral for the rest of your life. It’s like working out really hard and getting into the best shape of your life within 3 months and expecting that you’ll stay in top shape forever without ever lifting your butt off the couch again. It’s virtually impossible to be able to avoid pain, and keep a good posture without any effort. You will ruin your posture sitting, walking, running, exercising, standing, skying, playing tennis, wearing high heels and also sleeping. It’s better to accept that, so you don’t falsely believe that this or that particular exercise is what actually hurt you, or that running is bad for you because it hurts your knees. Sorry, but it’s not the exercises or the running that is hurting you. Our body is designed to run, jump, crawl, walk and withstand high impact exercises. It’s the misalignment in your posture that is putting too much pressure onto your joints, causing the cartilage to wear itself out. It’s the muscle imbalance that has happened over time that is causing improper load of your joints, making them prone to injury.
What leads to bad posture are all sorts of your daily activities (even the most passive ones), but of course the last cherry on the cake or the straw that broke the camel’s back is always the one thing we blame. The solution for many people is to avoid the activity completely. People stop exercising when they hurt their knees doing squats, or when they start feeling pain in their lower back doing kettlebell swings. They come to conclusion that these type of exercises are the cause of the pain and dangerous and they abandon fitness activities or sports that are so beneficial for our overall health. The solution is to stay consistent with your efforts to keep your posture always in the proper alignment via postural therapy however. If you make postural therapy exercises a part of your daily fitness routine, you’ll be about 99% less prone to chronic pain or injury.
Accept the responsibility
This is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind. You are the one responsible for your health and fitness, and you don’t need to rely on postural therapists to walk you through the routines every single time. You can learn the exercises, heal your body with postural therapy and keep a strong and functional posture for the rest of your life, if you accept the responsibility and remain pro-active.
Other articles for Postural Therapy
Private Member |
I love this. My knees feel sore after workouts, not sharp pain, but more like an aching. I started doing the postural therapy exercises after every workout and I have been recovering well. Some day I hope that I won’t feel the discomfort at all. How does this all connect to chiropractic care? I don’t get adjusted regularly, but have been considering going since starting to workout consistently, as I’m pushing my body to it’s limits every day and don’t want to stop!
Private Member |
toronto, canada
I feel a lot of pain in my back, at times my low back, other times mid to upper back on a daily basis. I also tend to roll my shoulders forward and have to make a conscious effort to adjust and roll my shoulders back. These postual therapy exercises that you have introduced have been wonderful and I’ve been incorporating them daily. I’m also the type of person who needs to get my Zgym workouts done early in the morning before my little guy wakes up and then I have to make sure I make my meals for the day, kitchen is all clean, house is all neat and tidy. Honestly between dogs and a 3 year old I feel my stress increase which I believe results in some of my back pain, I hold stress in my shoulder blades. Ok have I become a OCD perfectionist ? It’s sounds crazy I know, however with such a hectic day I can honestly say I love my early morning workouts with u Zuzka. I feel so much better after I’ve completed a workout and have energy like the energizer bunny… Lol..which is why I get on a cleaning mission everyday. I’m glad to incorporate these postural exercises daily, and as you mentioned it is something that you have to keep at it everyday, just like exercising and good eating habits:)) thank you Zuzka for your passion to health and fitness and everything you bring to Zgym and your site. The recipes are wonderful and I’m very glad to be apart of your community and Zgym ;)))love you girl!!
Private Member |
First I would like to thank you for the postural therapy exercises. The exercises are so simple but they’re so effective.
I would like to know is it better to them before or after workouts?
Thank you xxx
Private Member |
Hi Zuka
hope you are doing well and life is good at your end,i m ALI from pakistan, i m 35 years old and 6′.2″ tall , i have a disk problem in my lower back my lower disk L3 and L5 are herniated and i dont clearly remember how it started but i guess it happened in 2004 i injured my self while working out in the gym and i happened while i was doing dead lift i guess. i was young n stupid and my form was not right and due to that now i m in continuous pain and discomfort all the time. after 2004 the pain was very less after few months of physiotherapy but it never left me but it was very less and for last 5 to 6 years its back with vengeance sometimes the pain is to much that i cant stand up or lay down and sometimes its normal but there is always pain and now i have arthritics in my right knee i dont know if its due to the back pain but due to this i cant pick anything up from the floor coz i cant bend without pain n i cant bend my knee either , i have been in this pain for years now but still i try to workout in the gym when ever i can and now i have this passion to get in shape but when ever i hit the gym i end up in pain, i m taking pain killers and some medicine prescribed by a doctor, i want to get in shape badly and you cant imagine how much frustrated i feel when i cant even squat 30 Kg over my shoulder due to pain. i use knee wraps and belt around my waist and pay full attention on my form but still i feel the pain and when my body is warmed up i feel little discomfort but not so much pain and when i cold down at night my back get stiff and i cant even bend down or move freely and little task like changing cloths is hard .i m getting depressed due to this and when i see all that motivational videos of you on Internet i get excited and when i go to the gym i get depressed coz i cant do much due to my stiff body.its been almost three weeks now since i m back to the gym and with full focus and now i m determine to break these chains and will change my self and i want to do strength training but i cant coz it involves squats and dead lifts can you give any tip on how can i get in shape and not make my back get worse.
i hope you will help me out
Thanks for your time
Regards
Ali
Private Member |
kraków, poland
Sometimes I feel after workout pain in knee. And I don’t know how I can to help myself. What therapy can me help?
Private Member |
tustin, ca, usa
In the Army, they break your body into shape so it’s very common for people to have injuries afterward and I am no exception. I have terrible hip pain that generally occurs when I workout for a long period of time. I always feel so down on myself because I do really well with you for weeks and then bam! – it hurts to walk or do anything else. I get depressed and stop working out completely.
Honestly, I know I always overdo it and it’s hard for to to take it easy and be nicer to myself. Doing this helps and realizing that I don’t always have to be able to do what you do, but take it at my own pace is giving me a better outlook.
I hope to be able to continue your Summer Shred soon! Thanks Z!
Private Member |
My whole body is aching…except my knees (at least so far). I have chronic pain in both elbows, hips, lower back. I have had tendinitis in both shoulders in the past. Like you i had scoliosis when i was a teenager so i guess my back is not straight now. Although i wish i could workout in the morning, I just cannot do it because in the morning the aching is stronger.
I’m quite happy about this postural therapy series. I see that some exercices that you suggest are recommended to more than one problem (hips and lower back for example) so I’m thinking of including some in my daily routine. Not easy to take a new habit though…
Private Member |
ellijay, ga, united states
Years of falling, practicing the receiving side of take-downs in Martial Arts has taken its toll for me — I have some areas out of whack on my neck just from the repeated pounding. Chiropractic treatment has been helping, but I still get flare-ups. I went through several years of my shoulder hurting so badly at night that I could hardly sleep (I still get that pain, but treatment has drastically reduced the severity). I used to get migraines 4 out of 7 days a week. I’m down to 1-2 bad ones a month (and a few minor ones in between). While I’ve had an improvement, I’m always looking for ways to make it even better. I’m SO excited to see the therapy for neck pain coming up — I’m looking forward to having something that I can do at home to help the pain! Thank you so much for this series, Zuzka!!!
Private Member |
I suffer with lower back, after the exercises you suggested it’s gone!! Omg! Just like that! Gone:-) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
After pendulum I hurt my shoulder, well the cause is old injury not pendulum itself, but it came back and I struggled to the point I couldn’t think:-) didn’t stop working out but had to drop all those with weights, instead I had over a week of xjumpropes haha which made me happy and stronger and all that;-) Zuzka, sweetie pie and beautiful saviour do you have any shoulder repair exercises?? 😛 😉 😛 😉 please 🙂
Private Member |
I used to have problems with my upper back all the time, whenever I was doing the dishes, playing the piano, etc my back would start aching. I found out it was from weak, stretched back muscles, and tight chest muscles. I started strengthening my back muscles with rear lateral raises (you realize how weak you are when these are so incredibly difficult and you get so so sore), I still did chest exercises but I would make sure I’d stretch my chest really well. The problem was solved!
When I hear family members complaining about lower back pain, I tell them to strengthen their core (especially back) and stretch their abs!!! Not enough people know how to stretch their chest and ab muscles really well.