Humans are naturally creatures of movement. The human body is designed to allow comfortable movement patterns through our sometimes unpredictable environment. However, today’s culture certainly does not promote regular movement and unfortunately offers way too many “solutions” that make our lives just a little too easy. We sit in our cars to drive to work, we sit at our desks for hours at a time, then we sit back in our cars to drive home where we typically sit down to eat dinner and watch TV. You get the picture, the average American simply doesn’t move enough!

By now, the public is well aware of the effects that this inactivity has on our health. Sedentary lifestyles are one of the top risk factors for diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Unfortunately, the dangers of inactivity don’t end there. As we’ll examine, the lack of regular physical activity can lead to significant postural imbalances, and eventually, severe pain!

Hours upon hours of sitting is a great example of improper use of the body. While it may be an essential part of most modern day occupations, it is one of the leading causes of postural imbalance. Neutral alignment of the spine is absolutely critical in preparing the body to safely absorb any external force or strain. Yet, the ability to maintain neutral spinal alignment in the modern day lifestyle has seemingly become a non existent skill.

When the spine is out of alignment at any level, muscular imbalances manifest themselves in peoples’ posture and can cause not only pain, but also acute and chronic injury. If you look at the typical American adult who sits most of the day, they spend many hours a day with their back, head and shoulders rounded forward. This puts the muscles of the back in a constant state of being stretched, while the anterior muscles of the chest, hips and shoulders remain shortened. The result? Improper function of the muscles and eventually, the joints. Once the body learns to stay in this state, the malfunctions will lead to internal pain.

Sitting for long periods of time creates several classic postural deviations that can become irreversible it the tissues and bones adapt to them.

One of the most common deviations is known as kyphosis-lordosis, which is an increase in the normal inward curve of the lumbar spine (low back), often accompanied by a protruding abdomen, increased curvature of the thoracic spine (mid back), and a forward tilted head. This one is easy to recognize, I’m sure you all have seen that person in the office who always looks like they’re listening intently to what you’re saying by leaning their head in. Chances are, they’re not listening at all! LOL

Another classic postural deviation that develops from prolonged periods of sitting is the flat-back posture. This usually develops as a result of resting the lower back on a surface like a chair or couch, and results in a decrease in the normal inward curve of the lower back. The pelvis, in turn, develops a posterior (backward) tilt. If this goes uncorrected, it leads to tightness and pain in the upper abdominals and weakness in the lower back and hip extensors.

Finally, sway-back posture can develop simply by reacting to forces that are constantly in front of you, which is what most work demands call for (ie. working on a computer, writing, using a telephone at a desk, etc.). This postural deviation is trademarked by a long outward curve of the mid back with an over accentuated curve of the lower back. It’s usually accompanied by rounded shoulders and a severely sunken chest, which can also lead to abdominal tightness and hip flexors.

If you have gotten this far, you have probably noticed you were not sitting in an optimal position in your chair and adjusted yourself!
The point here is these imbalances can occur just by performing your typical everyday activities. You can combat this partly through your own awareness of where your body is in space at all times. But, even more so, you can prevent these problems by staying active, performing strength training and stretching, and getting regular exercise!

If the prospects of obesity and illness aren’t motivation enough to get yourself moving, hopefully the prospect of living with every day pain is daunting enough to get up and start exercising!!

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by Steven Hefferon, CMT, PTA

If you go to the gym to get healthy and fit, look good, feel good and pamper your ego, then I urge you take a minute to think about something,

Do you remember the old adage, “People like to do what they are good at and comfortable with”? Are you living that old adage at the gym? Most people do. They have a set routine at the gym, yet it’s that very routine coupled with the mechanics of the equipment that can lead to trouble-either very quickly or over time.

As beneficial as we know exercise can be, there are some things you need to be aware of before starting. The challenge is in knowing injuries can happen and how to prevent them. There are two basic categories of injuries: the sudden accident (a.k.a. trauma) and what can be described as a process injury (in other words, the long, slow development of a condition.) My goal is to protect you from both types of injury.

Traumatic Injury at the Gym

Let’s start with the 5 basic concepts of working out in order to show you how easy it is to injure yourself in a traumatic way.

•    Intensity: How hard you work out.
•    Frequency: How often you work out.
•    Duration: How long you work out.
•    Progressive Resistance: Using more resistance with each set you perform.
•    Progressive Overload: Starting at a higher level of resistance at subsequent workouts.

Each one of these principles has the ability to cause injury. But when you couple them the drive to eek out one more  repetition as you fatigue, you go into all kinds of contorted positions to get the job done.

All of a sudden, Bam-O! A hundred different injuries can happen. And they will take a long time to heal. You will have defeated the entire purpose of going to the gym in the first place. Please understand that the body can tolerate a lot of abuse before you pay the penalty of an injury. Just know that injuries can happen in seconds and the effects can last a lifetime.

Injury as a Process

Traumatic injuries do happen. But more often it is the slow progression injuries that are far more sinister and very well may  be the root cause of some traumatic injuries. So I would like to focus on what happens over the long term so that you can make a change now to prevent injuries.

I have spent the last 10 years of my life dealing specifically with what are called muscle imbalances and their effects on the back and body. In describing the concept I will use some examples and try to make you aware of what possible injuries you could be facing.

Muscle imbalance can be defined as strength and flexibility of one muscle group compared to the opposing muscle group. So if you compare the strength and flexibility of the quadriceps to the opposite muscle group, the hamstrings, in nine out of 10 people the quads will be overly strong and overly tight compared to the hamstrings. That’s the definition of having a muscle imbalance.

How Back and Body Injures Start!

The quads are always going to be stronger then the hamstrings, so you may be wondering what is wrong with that. Let me give you some possible examples of what can happen if your quads are drastically stronger than the hamstrings. As I give this example, understand that there are other imbalances that often happen at the same time to develop this condition. For example, the hip flexors and the glutes can be out of balance too.

When the quads are out of balance with the hamstrings, there can be uneven and excessive wear and tear on the cartilage and ligaments of the knee.  The knee will not function correctly and conditions will develop to the point that running and other basic physical activities will be painful, or even impossible.

Second, balance between the quads and the hamstrings keep the pelvis in a neutral and stable position. But when you have overly strong and overly tight quads, your pelvis will be pulled in several different directions. In some cases the whole pelvis is pulled excessively forward. In other cases one side of the pelvis comes even more forward and the hip elevates,
causing the pelvis to rotate. This is very common in physically active women over 40.

When the pelvis is not in the most neutral and most stable position possible, the spine may go into abnormal curvature. It is that abnormal curvature caused by the muscle imbalance that can set you up for hip problems, SI joint problems, back pain and sciatica.

How Does This Happen?

The very equipment you are using at the gym is either directly or indirectly helping you develop your muscle imbalances and setting you up for future problems.

Let me give you some examples. You cannot help but develop raw quad strength when you use the leg extension machine. As I asked you before, do you stick to exercises that you like to do? Let’s face it, everyone hates to work the hamstrings because they are weak and it is difficult. So most people overwork their quads and under-work their hamstrings.

Another example is the calf raise machine. Again, the calf muscle will always be stronger then the muscles in front of the shin, but when you blast your calves and do not work the muscles in the front of the shin you are setting yourself up for plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, Achilles tendonitis and even knee problems.

To recap, working out with gym equipment puts enormous unnatural force through the joint, restricts movements to linear motions and can very easily overdevelop muscle groups. This combined with the development to muscle imbalances is a hidden root cause of most if not all physical injuries at the gym.

Action Steps

As with any new desire to make a change in your life, you must first have a starting point. There is no easier way to get started then to take an inventory of where you are right now. It will not help you at all to make subjective assessments about yourself and not be honest, so I have a few suggestions:

•    Take photos of yourself. I would not always recommend this.  But in cases were your health and wellness are at stake, why not? Here is what you can do. Put on a bathing suit and have someone take photos, front, back and both sides, making sure that you see head to toe. Then take a look–not with a judging eye but a caring eye, looking for areas that are not in balance. For example, is your head straight? Is your head over your shoulders or is it forward of your shoulders? Are your shoulders level? What about your hips, are they level? (Look at your side view and suit line as a guide.)

Those are just some of the areas that you can gauge yourself on. You can also use the photos as a reference of how you are now so you can look back at how you were then.

•    Feel the pain. The best way to assess pain is by asking yourself how you feel in the morning, during the day and at night. With this one you will need to be honest with yourself, and I suggest that you write this down. You can even mark up the photos you took by writing on them at the body part or parts where you feel pain.

•    Listen to your body. If you are working out and you feel a little something and you’re not quite sure what it is, rest assured it’s your body telling you it does not like what you are doing to it.

•    Build your awareness. If you live with fear, worry or doubt about your weight, health or medical condition, the best way to overcome that it is to build your knowledge on the subject. Study what others already know.Working with a professional fitness trainer can drastically improve your chances of developing a safe, sound and effective exercise program.

And remember to always stay enthusiastic about the process. That is the secret to achieving your goals. If you listen to your body, you just might learn something about it!

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I’d like to introduce you to what I believe is the best kept secret to freeing yourself of back pain for good.

So many people suffer with reoccurring back pain because common treatments only address the symptoms and not the true cause. When you just treat symptoms, back pain never really goes away.

Long-lasting pain relief comes only when you look at the cause.

The Lose The Back Pain system is your personalized guide to understanding what’s causing your back, hip, or neck pain. And after it helps you discover the cause, this system shows you how to correct the problem and “lose” the pain!.

It’s the ONLY Self Diagnosis and Self Treatment System that addresses BOTH the cause and the symptoms!

Ever wonder why so many people can’t seem to find lasting relief?

There are hidden causes of back pain that most people don’t know about. Now Jesse Cannone, creator of Muscle Balance Therapy™, and the author of… The 7 Day Back Pain Cure wants to change that.

Muscle imbalances play a significant role in most back pain. One side of your body may be stronger than the other. Some muscles may be more flexible and still others may be tight and shortened from overuse.

These muscle imbalances stress your joints, ligaments, and surrounding muscles, causing pain. Muscle Balance Therapy™ strives to balance your muscles so muscle tension returns to normal. When your left and right sides, and front to back of your body’s muscles are balanced, your spine can be evenly supported. Posture improves, vertebrae slide back into place, releasing pressure from pinched nerves and muscles. Your back pain vanishes!

The Lose The Back Pain system helps you identify your muscle imbalances through several simple self-assessments. Once you’ve located your imbalances, the system teaches you how to use Muscle Balance Therapy™ to rebalance, stretch, and strengthen your problem areas.

The system simply brings your body back into proper alignment and helps reverse the process that created the pain in the first place.

Imagine having Jesse and Steve guide you step-by-step through the simple assessments on the first DVD, then the stretches and the exercises on the second. You know you’re doing them correctly as you watch them demonstrate, right in the privacy of your home.

Even if you’re suffering from sciatica or a herniated disc, you’ll find conditions like those included on the DVDs and in the Self-Assessment Workbook.

The system includes: 2 DVDs, 3 audio CDs, a reference manual, and personal workbook for you to create your custom treatment plan.

And here’s the best part – and this really sets these guys apart from the rest. You are welcome to call or email them with your questions about your specific situation! Personal support can make all the difference when you’re dealing with back pain.

If you’re still suffering with back, hip, or neck pain, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

Click here to learn more about the Lose The Back Pain system

Yours in health,

Dennys Passeto

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If you suffer from any type of back, neck or sciatic pain, then you need to go grab a copy of my good friend, Jesse
Cannone’s new book, “The 7-Day Back Pain Cure” ASAP…

Right now he is actually giving it away… you can also buy it on amazon, but if you grab one of the free copies from his website he is going to donate $2 to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital or Habitat for Humanity – you even get to choose the charity!

Click here to get your FREE copy now

Now, I’ve known Jesse for 12 Years and he has personally helped me overcome my battle with lower back pain.  He is now known as the “back pain relief guy” because he’s helped so many people to finally get rid of their pain… and over the years, I personally have learned a lot from him…

He is a mentor, friend, and the founder of Achieve Fitness.  I’m very proud of him for getting his first published
paperback book finally done.  He’s been working on it for years.  That’s why I think he’s half nuts for giving the
first 1000 copies away for free.

But really, his new book is incredible… in it he does what no one else in the medical community does, and that
is put together all of the pieces… see, most people when they have back pain usually get treatments that only mask
the pain… and even then, the treatments only address the physical symptoms…

In this book he shows you:

- Why traditional treatments always FAIL to deliver lasting relief

- The 7 mistakes that most people make that keep them in pain

- How to identify the real, underlying causes of your pain

- Which treatments work, which ones don’t and how to know which is right for you

So if you have ever suffered from back pain, or are currently dealing with it, I highly recommend you grab a copy of his book now – and you can’t beat the price (FREE)…

But don’t wait or “think about it” as he has only 1000 copies available to give away and there are literally millions of
people with back pain who are likely to hear about this.

Click here to get your FREE copy now

And please be sure to tell him I sent you.

Dennys Passeto, CPT
Owner of Achieve Fitness
Home of the Top Certified Personal Trainers in Maryland, Washington DC and Northern Virginia

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