Steve Lockhart

Back Pain, Sciatica and Muscle Maintenance

Most people would be surprised to know that muscles have a memory and they store the trauma of a painful physical injury, much like the mind does with a significant emotional trauma. Just like the mind the muscles require rehabilitation from these traumas.

It’s much more common for someone to talk out their problems or feelings with a friend to help clear their mind of stress and trauma than for them to have a deep tissue balancing massage after any physical injury to help remove the stress or trauma from their body.

When this is left in our body for any length of time the health and quality of the muscles deteriorates.

According to the 'experts', this deterioration is largely the result of aging but in fact it is more the result of our lifestyle and a lack of maintenance over an extended period.

Even exercise doesn’t save you from this deterioration because if only half of a muscle is functioning properly the exercise will only be working the functioning half.

When you get a deep tissue massage and it feels painful that is the stress and trauma being worked on but this is the best way to stop a worse problem arising later on.

It is much easier to prevent a problem now than fix the one that develops many years on.

It has always amazed me that most people will spend large amounts of time and money to maintain their home or their car but will thoughtlessly neglect their body, even though their body will have to last them much longer than their home or car ever will.

When a car looks dirty or the paint flakes on the house you can see it and know something needs to be done. On the body it is not so obvious. The problems start on the inside and by the time they begin to show up on the outside we have to deal with things like conditioning, habits and cravings or addictions, at which point changing becomes very difficult.

It is funny how when it does start to show up on the outside people rush off for cosmetic surgery etc at great expense when they could have avoided those bulges and wrinkles more effectively with proper internal maintenance during their life.

I saw a great sign once that said ' If you don't look after your body where are you going to live.' It is so true isn't it?

I suppose you could make up another one, ' If you don't look after your muscles how are you to move around without pain.'

Most back pain is the result of muscle imbalances, but it is my experience that it is not the imbalances themselves that actually give a person back pain. Rather the muscle imbalance puts the body into a vulnerable state whereby an increase in stress or pressure on a certain area will cause a strain and leave a person in pain.

This is evidenced by the accepted fact that most people have muscle imbalances yet only about 20% of them have back pain at any one time. It is also the reason why an activity that someone has done a hundred times before without a problem, can all of a sudden set off a pain episode.

I’ve explained how the cause of a person's pain can normally be traced back to a dysfunctional muscle, or group of muscles, that have tightened or shortened pulling the body out of alignment.

Muscles tighten then time with restricted circulation creates weakness and they end up shortened. When you undertake activities that tries to lengthen them it causes irritation and pain.

Article Tags: Back Pain

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