Fitness: Alexander Technique for Back Pain

By the end of the day your shoulders ache - or perhaps it's your neck or your lower back. You've tried to improve your posture with exercises, stretches, treatments, and they work - up to a point. Perhaps you feel you are just getting older, or that your flexibility is decreasing. You might have even had a diagnosis of something being actually 'wrong' - scoliosis perhaps, or osteophytes, or disc degeneration - and been told you'll just have to live with it.

Unfortunately, diagnosing and naming a condition can also give the impression of permanence, so that one does not look further for a solution.

Despite good intentions, relaxation classes, gym sessions and yoga, despite stretching exercises, physiotherapy, and taping, we're still tense and uncomfortable in our bodies, resulting in aching backs, sore necks, stiff shoulders, and injuries. But it doesn't have to be this way! What information are we missing? If back problems are age-related, why doesn't everyone over a certain age have them? Why do some people recover more fully from accidents than others? And why do some remain fit and active far longer, breezing comfortably through life, while others suffer one ache and pain after another?

The answer is that many of us get stuck at some point in our lives, at a certain level of tension, or fixity, or distortion, or holding, which becomes built-in to our habitual way of being. We become accustomed to having a "typist's hunch", a "mother's hip", or a "driver's neck". Because it is there all the time, this individual holding pattern simply slips below the level of our conscious awareness. We don't even know it is there. Such patterns of body use can levy a hidden strain, lowering performance and predisposing you to injury, especially back pain.

Our individual movement, holding and postural patterns, comprising our way of applying ourselves across all our activities, may encompass compensatory maladaptations to earlier injuring or on-going adjustments that generate further strain and injury. These personal patterns, for better or worse, comprise the matrix out of which all our actions are performed: exercise, relaxation, and work. It is precisely in unravelling these patterns that the Alexander Technique of neuromuscular re-education may be invaluable. In other words, it's the things that we don't know that we are doing, that may be at the root of back or neck pain.

Aches, pains and even degeneration may be symptoms of a hidden problem. Until the 'conditions of use' - that is, the individual's habitual holding pattern or way of 'wearing' themselves - has been adequately assessed, the diagnosis has only been partial. If there is an undiagnosed pattern of movement which involves, for example, unremitting pressure through the lower back, then until that pressure-producing habit is changed, the pain will continue.

An Alexander Technique teacher is highly trained to recognise poor habits of 'use', assessing where and how a person is introducing unnecessary strain into their way of being. The teacher brings to your attention things you are doing that you are unaware of, and so helps you to extend your choice in the way that you move, act and react. You learn a new way of moving; sitting, standing, and applying yourself across the range of your activities, with less strain, effort and energy. You begin to feel lighter and freer as old habits are unlearned. Pain, even of many years' standing, may start to dissipate.

Whatever our situation, we can learn to minimise strain, and work with our bodies, rather than mechanically performing exercises, or forcing 'right' positions, and ultimately fighting what is perfectly natural, comfortable, and strain-free.

CASE STUDIES

John's Story

John, a senior public servant in his fifties, had chronic back pain. He had been to his GP, an orthopaedic specialist, two physiotherapists and a Chinese-trained doctor. A CAT scan had revealed two prolapsed discs. John had been particularly diligent with an exercise and stretching program, and with trying hard to maintain good posture. As it turned out, a great deal of John's pain stemmed from the excessive effort required to maintain this overly rigid good posture. Initially, the Technique brought pain relief, followed by a new feeling of wellbeing. John noticed a "looseness, a freedom" in his limbs. He adds, "I now play tennis three times a week and ride my bike. I haven't done either activity for 10 years and I had, in fact, been told I would never do them again!"

Debra's Story

Forty-six year-old Debra started Alexander Technique lessons to see if it would help her chronic neck pain. She had bulging discs in her neck, and tenosynovitis extending back over three years. Debra learned to make links between her (controllable) habits of use of herself, and the functioning which they affected. She was able to progressively reduce the vice-like grip her muscles had held on her neck, allowing it to find a less strained position. Her arms became significantly less painful, she was able to sit comfortably for longer and to write more freely. An unexpected further benefit was a noticeable increase in energy as she learned to not invest energy in unproductive and pain-producing tension.

Jackie's Story

Jackie, a 47 year-old pharmacist, started Alexander Technique lessons hoping to reduce neck pain. She had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for 10 years. She found that she was indeed able to influence her pain levels and to be more comfortable in everyday life, as well as learning a procedure to help her when things were particularly bad. Of course, the Technique did not address the rheumatoid arthritis, but it helped Jackie to cope better. Like John and Debra, Jackie had been doing her hest to 'improve' her posture. And, like them, her understanding of what good posture consisted of, how to achieve it and how to maintain it, where all based on common but potentially dangerous misconceptions. Their teachers were able to gradually correct these.

Michael Stenning

Copyright: Michael Stenning.
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