Back
Pain
Back pain is one of humanity’s most common complaints. It is
generally called dorsalgia, but it comes in a variety of forms,
including the very common lumbago, which is lower back pain or
low back pain. Back pain is the second most common neurological
ailment in the world — only headache is more
common.
Back pain may be classified anatomically - neck pain, upper
back pain, lower back pain or tailbone pain – or by duration -
acute (back pain for less than 4 weeks), subacute (back pain
for 4 – 12 weeks) or chronic (back pain for greater than 12
weeks).
Why
is your back so susceptible?
Your back supports your entire
body, using a complex interconnecting network of nerves,
joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. All these components
are capable of producing pain in back, low back and surrounding
areas. Because the back is connected to the rest of your body,
it also means that pain in back can be an early warning of
underlying conditions elsewhere in your body.
Large nerves that originate in the
spine and go to the legs and arms can make pain radiate to the
extremities. The pain may be felt in the neck (and might
radiate into the arm and hand), in the upper back, or in the
low back, (and might radiate into the leg or foot), and may
include symptoms other than pain, such as weakness, numbness or
tingling.
The
Rolfing Approach To Back Pain
Rolfing is a systematic programme of postural
repatterning that seeks to bring your body back into alignment.
Thus Rolfing continuously seeks out a dynamic, creative balance
in your body that is quite different from holding it in one
rigid postural
position.
Rolfing sees the body and its structure as a
series of interconnected and inter-related bony segments. As a
Rolfer will explain to you, your body is designed to provide
internal support for all these segments. Large sections rest on
sections below them and provide support for sections that are
above them. In this case, the back, especially the lower
back, provides internal support for almost all of your
body.
To
understand how Rolfing treatment for the back works, it is
important to recognize that the back pain cannot be understood
by looking at the back alone.
Dr.
Ida Rolf, a pioneer in body work, perfected the technique
structural integration called Rolfing. According to Dr. Rolf,
the traditional idea of standing up straight, shoulders back,
stomach in and head high, actually misaligns the spine and
deforms the skeleton.
Rolfing operates through a sequence of
hands-on manipulation, the Rolfers move the tissue of the back
and lower back toward symmetry and balance that the body
demands by stretching and moving the
tissue.
The Rolfing Treatment For The
Back
Rolfing is designed to
loosen the fascia, resulting in a freedom of muscle movement
and the unlearning of bad patterns of muscle strain and misuse,
resolving the source of the back pain. This release should then
enable the back to properly align itself. When the back is
properly aligned, back pain should
recede.
For low back pain as well as
disk herniation, Rolfing would focus on softening, releasing,
and lengthening the muscle tissue and creating space between
the intervertebral disks (most easily seen when Rolfing creates
space between the pelvis and the
ribs).
Some of the key muscles
involved in Rolfing for back pain will possibly be the
muscles involved in hip flexion and the connective tissue which
surrounds them as well as the various lower back muscles and
the strong ligaments that hold the sacrum in place (the sacrum
is the triangular bone at the base of your spine which you
might know as the tailbone)
The Advantages of Rolfing For Your
Back
Rolfing’s great strength is that it is non-invasive, and
hence while undergoing Rolfing you will be able to continue
with daily life and even sports, while simultaneously treating
and relaxing your back muscles, which will eventually allow you
a greater range of movement and increase your
flexibility.
It is crucial to understand
that Rolfing will treat the body not as individual parts, but
as a whole, so the whole organism realigns. Then, movement
education would be provided to help prevent future recurrence
of the problem.

back
pain
|