Many years ago I must have injured my spine just being a kid and gymnast. In.living like that, there are falls, sometime from heights, and lots of bending, twisting and turning. And as we all do, we bounce back. Maybe we are a bit sore for a couple of days, but soon everything is forgotten and we go on living.
Later as a squash player I often ended up with tightness in my back, and once or twice I found myself in real, frightening pain. Standing was almost I impossible, and the ‘walk’ to the toilet had to happen on all fours. At that stage I was in my mid-twenties. Again, I somewhat recovered, but that nagging tightness after not only playing a game of squash, but also doing other activities remained.
The body is am amazing machine, it will always get moving again in some fashion, but when bones have been knocked or pulled out of place it compensates. The original movement patterns and configuration of our spine and joints change for worse. Uneven wear happens which compounds the problem. Many years later my spine had become less stable as a result of my ‘living’ and sometimes just reaching for something -without even touching it- caused a major spine episode.
That’s when I ended up at a Wellness chiropractor. Before any treatment is done by one of those, x-rays are taken to have a baseline. I have always kept my first x-rays, but only recently looked back over them. The reason for this was that I had another set taken. I was interested in the comparison, keen to see if anything had changed. In the mean time I have been doing lots of movement, and of late some gymnastic moves as well. My body feeling told me that my spine had improved significantly.
You see, when I looked at my first set of x-rays I found my neck curve to be non existent or ever so slightly the other way to what it should be. There was a slight scoliosis in the middle of the spine and one of my hips was higher than the other. In other words if nothing was done, perfectly set up for problems down the track. Soon after the first lot of chiropractic I started to go to a traditional gym and a couple of years later started to teach body balance classes.
My second set of x-rays showed very marginal change for the better. This was 5 years after the first set was taken. By then I had also started to train with kettlebells which served me well in building great abdominal strength to almost eliminate my back episodes. I had also learned what led to tightness in my back for me (I’m sure everyone has different triggers), and how to stretch any tightness out. Probably a year and a half ago I started to add Original Strength moves into my own and my clients’ warm up and training programs. These consist mostly of head nods, rocking and crawling. When my chiropractor asked for another set of x-rays, I was excited, because that would give me a real look at the effects of what I had been doing. I couldn’t wait to see. What I found amazed me and the chiropractors of the practice as well. My neck curve had returned to its original shape, the scoliosis was all but gone and my hips were only 3mm from being level! The spaces in my joints look healthy except for one small area where I had obviously injured the spine. But even that area looked surprisingly good. I am 53 years old now. After seeing the effect of consistently doing the right ‘small’ things I am living proof that you can reclaim your body and go a long way towards healing your spine. And once your spine functions better, you will as well.
