DAN'S PAPERS, July 4, 2008 Page 180 www.danshamptons.com
Health/Fitness
C7, T12, L1, L5, Bingo! Time to Align the Spine becomes almost concave. But there is time to save yourself from this seemingly inevitable fate. Your spine consists of separate vertebrate, each of which is sort of like a jelly donut: soft on the inside and strong on the outside. In an aligned spine, these vertebrate are stacked on top of each other without strain. There is a natural curve to the spine, so the vertebrate are not straight up and down. The spine is divided into three sections: the cervical vertebrate is from the base of the skull to the C7 vertebrate. That’s the knobby one that sticks out more than the others at the top of your back. From that vertebrate to the to T12 vertebrate, which is in the middle of your back, is the Thoracic vertebrate. Just below T12 is L1. From L1 to L5, just five vertebrate, is the Lumbar spine. Each of these sections curves in a “C” formation, creating a connected sort of curving line. Thus, to have your back in alignment does not mean it is entirely straight. It means more precisely that each vertebrate is in line with its neighbors, and the natural curve of your spine is respected. A simple exercise to practice good alignment involves attentiveness to these curves in your spine. By simply rolling your shoulders back so that your shoulder blades are lowering down your back, you are compensating for that forward tendency that leads to poor posture and permanent problems.
So if you just focus, once in a while, when you take a deep breath, on rolling your shoulders down your back, you are giving balance to your posture. Once you’ve rolled your shoulder blades down your back, take a deep breath in. Fill your lungs with air. Your lungs have the most capillaries at the bottom, so it’s good to fill your lungs deeply, almost like you would fill a glass, from the bottom up. Tuck your tailbone beneath you, let your stomach hollow. Imagine filling your body with breath in
Alsion Caporimo
Perhaps for you, the phrase “sit up straight – don’t slouch” recalls a nagging granny voice from across your childhood dinner table. Or perhaps it’s a dance instructor, or a yoga teacher, or an etiquette expert. The point is this advice is more worthwhile than you may have once believed. I was once a 16year-old huncher because my gawky height advantage made me miss out on whispers among my friends. And it didn’t cross my mind until years later that this was much worse than being improper or unladylike. It was compromising my stomach muscles and my shoulders, it was damaging my spine, and it was constricting my breathing. Now that I’ve realized the wide-ranging effects of slouching, that old granny voice sounds a whole lot wiser. Besides the psychological reasons behind an awkward teenager’s slouching, there are anatomical impulses that make poor posture a natural progression. We live in a forward facing world. Everything we do is towards the front. We speak forward, we move forward, we react forward. Our shoulders have a tendency to roll forward. Young children are like sprouting bean plants, reaching straight up for the sky. But put that child at a desk for a dozen years and cut funding to their physical education classes. Watch how they cave in towards their chests. Then give that growing child, now a young adult, a seat in a cubicle, with attention on a computer screen and fingertips striking a keyboard. The hunch worsens. As that young adult grows older, sitting at the steering wheel of a car, on a couch in front of a television, in a wheelchair in the park on a spring day, the shoulders creep so far forward, the shoulder blades so spread apart, that the chest
a figure 8 motion. As you inhale, let your breath go from your lower back/waist (think kidneys!) to your chest, then allow it to circulate through your shoulders and down your spine, and then to the bottom of your belly. If this is difficult to perceive, just give it a try. Take a deep, slow inhale and picture your breath filling your body in a figure 8 motion. Just one complete inhale and exhale like this, and you will feel how your spine is supposed to be aligned. Your stomach muscles strengthen so you’re holding yourself up from the root up. The muscles in your lower back counteract that tension in the stomach with their own strength. Your shoulder blades draw closer together, creating space in your chest. And suddenly, your head seems to float atop your neck, each vertebrate in line with the last. Perfect posture never felt so relaxing!
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