Back rehabilitation, exercise and yoga
Rehabilitative exercise helps improve the back. Exercise and movement keeps the back healthy by allowing discs to exchange fluids, which is how they receive nutrition. Healthy discs swell with water and squeeze it out, similar to the action of a sponge. This 'sponge' action distributes nutrients to the discs. What is more, this fluid exchange helps to reduce swelling in the other soft tissues and naturally occurs surrounding injured discs. When there is a lack of exercise, swelling increases and discs become malnourished and degenerated.
Exercise reduces stiffness and improves mobility and flexibility by keeping the connective fibers of ligaments and tendons flexible through exercise. Mobility is improved and there is less likelihood of the connective fibers tearing under stress, which in turn prevents injury and back pain.
Yoga is extremely effective in:
Exercise reduces stiffness and improves mobility and flexibility by keeping the connective fibers of ligaments and tendons flexible through exercise. Mobility is improved and there is less likelihood of the connective fibers tearing under stress, which in turn prevents injury and back pain.
Yoga is extremely effective in:
- Increasing flexibility – yoga has positions that act upon the various joints of the body including those joints that are never really on the ‘radar screen’ let alone exercised.
- Increasing lubrication of the joints, ligaments and tendons – likewise, the well-researched yoga positions exercise the different tendons and ligaments of the
body. Surprisingly, a body which may have been quite rigid starts experiencing flexibility in even those parts which have not been consciously worked upon. As research into yoga positions shows, seemingly unrelated 'non strenuous' yoga positions act upon certain parts of the body in an interrelated manner. When done together through regular practice, they work in harmony to create a situation where greater flexibility is gradually attained.