As I find myself getting creakier and creakier every morning, I realize the truth that my body is getting older and I need to figure out better bio-mechanics.
So, this article was pretty interesting.
To see if you're bending correctly, try a simple experiment."Stand up and put your hands on your waist," says Jean Couch, who has been helping people get out of back pain for 25 years at her studio in Palo Alto, Calif."Now imagine I've dropped a feather in front of your feet and asked to pick it up," Couch says. "Usually everybody immediately moves their heads and looks down."That little look down bends your spine and triggers your stomach to do a little crunch. "You've already started to bend incorrectly — at your waist," Couch says. "Almost everyone in the U.S. bends at the stomach."
... which is hard on your back.
To save you some reading, there is another way of bending that could be less back straining and leverages your hips which is biomechanically superior for swiveling and moving: Table bending.
How To 'Table' Bend
To hip hinge:
1. Place your feet about 12 inches apart.
2. Keep your back straight.
3. As you bend your knees, allow your pubic bone to move backward.
4. Fold over by allowing your pubic bone to slide through your legs, down and back.
From the article - helpful hint on how to do this Table-bend:
So how in the world do you do this mysterious bending? Back in Palo Alto at Jean Couch's Balance Center, she tells me the trick: Find your fig leaf.
"Stand up and spread your heels about 12 inches apart, with your toes 14 inches apart," she says. "Now, if you are Adam in the Bible, where would you put a fig leaf?"
"Uh, on my pubic bone?" I answer shyly.
"Exactly," Couch says. "Now put your hand right there, on your fig leaf. When you bend, you want to let this fig leaf — your pubic bone — move through your legs. It moves down and back."
So I try it. I put my hand on my pubic bone as a pretend fig leaf. Then as I bend my knees a bit, I allow my fig leaf to move through my legs. A little crevice forms right at the top of my legs and my back starts to fold over, like a flat table.
"Now you're using the large muscles of your hips, such as the glutes, to support the whole weight of your body, instead of the tiny muscles of your back," says Jenn Sherer, who co-owns the Balance Center with Couch.
For an analogy of the differences of motion:
When people bend with the cashew shape in their back — like we often do — they're bending their spine. "That puts more stress on the spinal disks," McGill says.
Disks are little rings of collagen found between each vertebra, which form a joint. But they aren't made for tons of motion. "They have the mechanical characteristics of more like a fabric," McGill says.
"If you took a cloth, and you kept bending and stressing it, over and over again, the fibers of the weave of the cloth start to loosen up and delaminate," he says.
Eventually, over time, this fabric can fray, which puts you at risk of slipping a disk or having back pain.
On the other hand, when you hip hinge, your spine stays in a neutral position. The bending occurs at the hip joint — which is the king of motion.
"Hips are a ball and socket joints," McGill says. "They are designed to have maximum movement lots of muscle force."
Source NPR.org (link)
So, this article was pretty interesting.
To see if you're bending correctly, try a simple experiment."Stand up and put your hands on your waist," says Jean Couch, who has been helping people get out of back pain for 25 years at her studio in Palo Alto, Calif."Now imagine I've dropped a feather in front of your feet and asked to pick it up," Couch says. "Usually everybody immediately moves their heads and looks down."That little look down bends your spine and triggers your stomach to do a little crunch. "You've already started to bend incorrectly — at your waist," Couch says. "Almost everyone in the U.S. bends at the stomach."
... which is hard on your back.
To save you some reading, there is another way of bending that could be less back straining and leverages your hips which is biomechanically superior for swiveling and moving: Table bending.
How To 'Table' Bend
To hip hinge:
1. Place your feet about 12 inches apart.
2. Keep your back straight.
3. As you bend your knees, allow your pubic bone to move backward.
4. Fold over by allowing your pubic bone to slide through your legs, down and back.
From the article - helpful hint on how to do this Table-bend:
So how in the world do you do this mysterious bending? Back in Palo Alto at Jean Couch's Balance Center, she tells me the trick: Find your fig leaf.
"Stand up and spread your heels about 12 inches apart, with your toes 14 inches apart," she says. "Now, if you are Adam in the Bible, where would you put a fig leaf?"
"Uh, on my pubic bone?" I answer shyly.
"Exactly," Couch says. "Now put your hand right there, on your fig leaf. When you bend, you want to let this fig leaf — your pubic bone — move through your legs. It moves down and back."
So I try it. I put my hand on my pubic bone as a pretend fig leaf. Then as I bend my knees a bit, I allow my fig leaf to move through my legs. A little crevice forms right at the top of my legs and my back starts to fold over, like a flat table.
"Now you're using the large muscles of your hips, such as the glutes, to support the whole weight of your body, instead of the tiny muscles of your back," says Jenn Sherer, who co-owns the Balance Center with Couch.
For an analogy of the differences of motion:
When people bend with the cashew shape in their back — like we often do — they're bending their spine. "That puts more stress on the spinal disks," McGill says.
Disks are little rings of collagen found between each vertebra, which form a joint. But they aren't made for tons of motion. "They have the mechanical characteristics of more like a fabric," McGill says.
"If you took a cloth, and you kept bending and stressing it, over and over again, the fibers of the weave of the cloth start to loosen up and delaminate," he says.
Eventually, over time, this fabric can fray, which puts you at risk of slipping a disk or having back pain.
On the other hand, when you hip hinge, your spine stays in a neutral position. The bending occurs at the hip joint — which is the king of motion.
"Hips are a ball and socket joints," McGill says. "They are designed to have maximum movement lots of muscle force."
Source NPR.org (link)
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