Back To Front

Me, before.

Every time I stand up, my back hurts.   From that statement alone, you can probably figure out what's wrong.

 It's been going on like this for months.  An injury after doing a lot of air squats.  I've been doing the stretches I learned from Theresa at CrossFit Appleton and they do help, but not enough.  Every morning the pain starts when I get out of bed and start to stand up straight.

It started dawning on me the other day, but not yet like anything important.  A lot of times I think of stuff that way; over a long time ideas kind of percolate up.  Then today, I'm standing in the kitchen thinking about the way my back hurts - Trying to straighten up pulls my spine into over-extension (belly sticking out.) and makes it sore.

That means that every time I open my hip joint, my back gets pulled on. If I focus attention on it I can feel it happening.  The front of my hips are tight!  Most of the stretches I've been doing are working on stretching the posterior chain; hamstrings and so on.  Not a waste of time, but not the cause of my back pain.

So now to open the hips.  I did the couch stretch, 3 minutes on each side.  Then I stood up.  No back pain.  Shazzam!

I've been thinking that I spend most of my life folded up; sitting, sleeping, working.  A real imbalance in life.  When I tried the couch stretch before, I still hurt after.  Maybe because it was late in the day, I would ache even after the cause was fixed.  My hips did feel more open.  I was thinking that the cause was the bottom position of my squat - always room for improvement there.  Now I'm thinking that it was tight hips at the top of the squat.  That has real ramifications for movements in running and xc skiing.  I'm pumped!

I'm so happy to have Kelly Starrett's Mobility WOD for a resource.  Great for ongoing maintenance and an accumulated resource for specific movement solutions.  If you have movement challenges, take a cautious approach and get in there and do your maintenance.  You'll feel better and when you remove obstacles to good movement, your performance will improve.  That's money on the table!

Me, after.  Well, not really. This is from a couple of weeks ago, but it is how I feel!