Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living: A practical approach to eliminating chronic back pain, tendonitis, neck and shoulder tension, and repetitive stress
240
Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living: A practical approach to eliminating chronic back pain, tendonitis, neck and shoulder tension, and repetitive stress
240eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
This book explains the basic principles behind Williamson Muscular Retraining, which helps people to use their bodies more efficiently and gracefully, in a way that is practical and easy to understand. The problems of poor posture, muscle tension, and stress-caused pain are corrected by seeing them through the lens of kinesthetic awareness. The importance of kinesthetic awareness is typically overlooked precisely because it is lacking in so much of our population, including health care practitioners. Retraining for Pain-Free Living presents case examples of how people have used body awareness to improve how they sit, stand, and move - to rid themselves of ongoing muscular pain.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780834824911 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Shambhala |
| Publication date: | 08/14/2007 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
From the Introduction
Fifty-five-year-old Kevin came to my office after hearing about me from a friend. Kevin's doctor had recently told him that the lower back pain he had been feeling for months was caused by a combination of bulging and compressed discs in his lumbar spine. When I first saw him, he was a bit hunched over, walking with the typical protective posture of someone trying to avoid a sharp pain with every step.
Kevin had been an athlete his entire life. In recent years, he had been playing a lot of tennis and running four times a week. The pain in his lower back came on gradually over the course of several months. When I met him, he was spending most of his time lying down, and tennis and running were out of the question.
I taught Kevin how to relax his back muscles, how to use his abdominal muscles, and how to improve the alignment of his back and hips. I did this by first teaching him how to feel his muscles and to become aware of what they were actually doing. Despite being an athlete, Kevin—like most of the people who come to my office—was out of touch with his body. That changed quickly as a result of the exercises I taught him, all of which are included in this book.
Kevin learned how to sit and stand without overcompressing his lower back. Not rocket science, but since he had never learned about it before, it turned out to be of immeasurable importance to him. Within a month of beginning the exercises, he reported that the low back pain was no longer constant. After two months, he said that the pain occurred only intermittently or when he twisted too far in one direction. After four months, he told me that the pain was pretty much gone. After six months, he began running again. Ten years later, Kevin is still running and has no back pain.
Does this sound like fantasy or reality?
Physical movement is inherently pleasurable, yet many people do not experience it that way. If you spend some time at a playground with preschool children, you can't help but notice that most of them enjoy running, jumping, and moving in all kinds of ways. For adults, the main issue that interferes with the enjoyment of movement is physical pain.
To enjoy working in your garden, painting your house, carrying your child, or driving your car, you need to be able to move without pain. Some people seem to manage for a while by taking painkillers. But drugs simply mask the symptoms without addressing the cause of the pain. Unless the cause is addressed, symptoms tend to worsen over time. Ultimately, the experience, fear, and anticipation of pain inhibit an individual's activity. This means doing less work around the house, playing less frequently with children or grandchildren, getting less exercise, and so on. I tell people who suffer from chronic or recurring pain that their body is not an enemy. I show them what they need to know in order to make their body an ally. I tell them—and I am telling you now—that it is possible to change.
When you are free from physical pain, you are able to enjoy the simple pleasures of movement—from gardening to basketball and everything in between. When you are able to use your body without pain, you enjoy a sense of well-being.
What People are Saying About This
"Williamson's true gift is guidance in understanding the connection among body movement, self awareness, and relaxation."—Library Journal
"This book contains the keys to living fully and freely in your body."—Christine Northrup, MD, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
"Everyone in pain, and those who treat them, should read this book."—Karen Margolis, MD, Senior Clinical Investigator, HealthPartners Research Foundation; Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Medical School
"Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living is an important contribution to the literature on diagnosis and treatment of musculo-skeletal problems."—Douglas W. Brown, MD, President, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine; former Team Physician, U.S. National Soccer Teams (1986–2004)
"Craig Williamson has written a brilliant book: clear, concise, and profound. Reading it may not only change your awareness of your body, it may also change your life."—Donald Hankinson, DO, Director of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine at Maine Medical Center
"Craig has paid his dues in many years of exploring the field, from the arts to psychotherapy to the biomechanical sciences. His book is a breath of fresh air—an appeal to the innate but largely unused power of our kinesthetic intelligence to heal and 'right' ourselves."—Tom Myers, LMT, NCTMB, author of Anatomy Trains
"I recommend Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living for yoga teachers as well as anyone who wants to move with better function, elegance, and ease."—Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, physical therapist and yoga teacher since 1971; author of six books, including A Year of Living Your Yoga
"Craig Williamson's Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living is a revelation for people who seek relief from chronic bodily pain. It is a book about healing that works, because Craig knows the vital importance of awareness to healthy living."—Robert K. Hall, MD, cofounder Lomi School; author of Out of Nowhere; Dharma teacher
"Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living opens the door to healing through increased awareness—for professionals, athletes, dancers, and people in the street. Author Craig Williamson extends an invitation to all readers to discover their own habitual patterns and transform connections between their minds and bodies. I recommend it to students and teachers alike as an accessible and useful guide to come back to again and again."—June Vail, Professor of Dance, Bowdoin College