In today’s world or creature comforts, back pain is the number on cause or days of work and the number one problem that doctors have seated in there waiting room’s.
With the emergence of evoloution, things are starting to look bleak for the world, as well as war’s brakeing out in the pursuit of power, we are slowly destroying not only each other but the one thing that god gave us, our own body’s
Motion or the lack of it, is slowly causeing human kind pain, pain that grows through out there body’s, and the more pain is felt the less we do. You will hear “”i can’t bend to touch my toes it hurt’s,”” “”or i don’t walk far, its the legs they burn””, so what do we do, the answer is nothing, we sit on big soft sofas, and eat procesed food from a microwave that give’s out radiation, and watch tv for hour’s hearing story’s of death and wars, slowly destroying the human design.
Thousands and thousands of years ago if you woke up and felt like sitting down and watching the sun, two things would have happened,
1.you and your family would die
2.you and your family would starve, and die
our cave man friends were full of motion, the hunted, throwed spears, pulled trees and food that they killed and cooked over a natural fire, they climbed to escape there pray, they pushed logs to build there own houses, the squated for hours as they had no seats and if they did sit they sat on the floor with no back surport, infact they never stoped moveing, they had to just to stay alive.
In the today’s world there is no need to do all of this and the threat of death seem’s not to be as important, but with the lack of motion we are killing our body’s each day. Not only with weakness of muscles and the surrounding makeup, but with internal organs, as motion (movement of muscles, then in turn joint’s)switches on the invoulunity system, the system responsible for transpotation of oxygen for breathing, white and red blood cell’s and the workings of all organs within the body, and this includes the brain, just to name a few.
So the lack of motion will destroy the human body, with the number one muscle/skeletal problem being the back.
The back is a engineers heaven, designed to perform with the slightest of ease, but what can carry out some truly amazing task.
The human spine can withstand loads of up to 50% when lying down, 100% when standing, 150% when seated or standing slouced and 200% when slumping seated in a chair,all acting on lumber vertibrae no 3, added to this tension held by the muscles and fascia’s, tension in the spinal ligaments, intra abdominal pressure and any weight held by the limbs.
All this pressure, with the added tension of any rotaional movement (torque,) shearing (forces parallel to the spine)compression (pressing or squeezing of force)and combinations of all, it is no wonder that the human spine is prone to injury.
With all that is going on in the spine with relation to the limbs and it’s position against the earths gravtational pull, and the reaction of the ground, it is desinged in such a way to be able to control the pressure against it and transfer the kinetic energy up the chain for power in the upper torso, and back down again for power in the lower torso, but hear lies the problem.
When the foot strikes the ground or the head move’s from signles by the eyes, energy is transported down and up to be used for movement, but as that foot hits the floor or the eyes move, the moveing kinetic energy will find the quickest and straightest path, no matter whats in it’s way.
So when you take a close look in the mirror and see that the ankle,knee,hips and shoulders do not form a 90degree angle from the front, back and sides, and see that your head is not straight down the middle and the ankle,knee,hip and shoulder are not in a straight down line when viewed from the back and front, and your feet are not pointing straight ahaead,and hips,shoulders are not level across, you begin to see how pain is caused.
When the human form shows a postural imbalance, and muscles and joints are not in the position god created, the transfer of energy is being absored within a muscle or joint that is closest to the point of transfer, this in turn causes pain and discomfort.
As the sacroiliac joint (si joint)is the bridge between the spine and pelvis and is designed for the transfer of enegry, both up and down the chain, if the spine is directed away from the pelvis and the pelvis is dirrected away from the hip, and the femer is directed away from the hip and so forth along the chain with the end resuilt being the feet pointing either out, or pointing in, with the shoulders lifted or rounded and the neck back and twisted, the transfer of energy is going to find it hard to continue it’s journey, it will but at a price, the price being pain to the si joint.
The si joint is a synovial join (diarthrodial joint) being surrounded both anteriorly and posteriorly by a joint capsule, inner synovial membranes and hyline cartilage. It is L shaped in it’s apperence and is designed to transfer large loads and human energy during functional movement, like running, jumping, hopping etc, and can transfer up to 520% through the hip in skiing, down to 260% when climbing stars (the hip needs the si joint to be functional to perform these task, or hip pain starts).
With it’s articular surface being flat and of a vertcial plane this aids it’s ability to transfer stress, it is why as children the si joint forms small groves and ridges which aids in it’s stability and energy transfer.
The si joint which attaches to the ilium and sacrum, are protected by strong ligaments, these being
1.the interosseus ligament, which is thick and strong and with it’s strong elastin make up allows for stability as well as small movement with the joint.
2.sacrotuberous ligamnent, has a strong foundation and haveing attachement to the bicep femoris, glutes maximus, piaformis and the thoracolumber facia (the thoracolumber facia aids in satbility of the spine with it’s attachment to the internal oblique and transverse abdominis (part of the inner unit) and the latissimus dorsi (the posterior oblique sling system, a outer unit sling)along with the peroneus longus-bicep femoris-and opposite side erector spinae (the deep longintudinal sling)
3.the posterior sacroilic ligament
4.the sacrospinous ligament
5.the long dorso sacroilic ligment, this is the one which tends to hold pain.
6.the illolumber ligament
and are all desingned to allow the si joint to transfer the energy and produce stabiliy witin the joint through what is known as
1.form closure, muscles pulling laterally over fascia and ligaments that pass the joint. And
2.force closure, the aligment of the illium and sacrum to form a key stone.
Also the si joint can go through nutation and counternutation, in nutation the sacrum moves forward, the illiac crest moves medially and the ischial tuberosities moves spread apart. In conternutation the exact opposite happens, both aiding in childbirth.
With the lack of motion we are opening ourself’s up for imbalances within the human body, a change of position and functions of the joint,muscles,ligamnets,tendons and fascia’s forces our bodys and mind to carry out wrong movement pattern’s and building wrong motor ingrain control in our nervous system, that forms habbits.
Once we form habbit’s our body thinks this is the correct way to perform movement, ending with wrong signles sent by the muscle brains (check author’s articals)resulting in pain and discomfort.
The si joint is a wonderful joint helped by some of the strongest ligaments in the body, but with the wrong starting position and things happen, you can no longer control movement and weight through the joint and back problems start.
So the next time the you are of work with back pain, look in the mirror and save the si joint.
take care of your body and it will take care of you
perfect movement and movement will perfect you.
happy movement.
stephen braybrook is a highly qualifield expert in the field of posture, functional movement, and rehab. with over 60 qualifcations to his name he has worked for schools, professional sportsman, councils,coleges and teaches pilates, aleaxandra technique and kinesiology througout the area as well as being a black belt martial artist and haveing his own choi kwang do school.
