Friday, June 20, 2008

The Essential Low Back Program


Back pain is as common as weekend gardening and surfing the internet. Fortunately, there’s a new tool available to relieve and prevent low back pain: the Essential Low Back Program by Robin Rothenberg, a booklet and 5 audio CD set. The practice outlined in the program was developed for a National Institutes of Health study, and 78% of the participants who followed the program experienced significant reduction in their pain levels—and still had relief after six months.

The booklet is a pleasure to read with plenty of illustrations and photos. It gives background information that anyone with back pain needs: basic anatomy, posture, and the mind-body connection. One of my favorite lines from the book is: “It rarely occurs to us that the body may, in fact, be expressing the unspoken frustrations and needs of the heart.”

Each of the 5 CDs include a separate yoga practice which progress from entry level and builds up to a strong, dynamic sequence. They are easy to follow, as if you were receiving a private yoga session in your own living room, even if you’ve never done yoga before. This isn’t the twist-yourself-into-a-pretzel kind of yoga. This is a therapeutic practice that starts with beneficial breathing (good for anyone), moves on to a sequence of exercises that strengthen and stretch the back and hips (also good for anyone), and ends with much needed relaxation (that’s the essential part).

I highly recommend this program for anyone with chronic low back pain or who wants to improve spine health, or who just wants another good yoga practice. You can view excerpts at this link: http://www.piyogatherapy.com/downloads/book_excerpts.pdf.

1 comment:

david said...

I had back problems for over a year! I thought I had a serious back problem, so I asked a friend for advice, she told me to put a plank of wood under my mattress. All I need to say is it worked, I no longer turn up at work wanting to kill somebody.