Get best of the week

do {Yoga} while (backache)

Introduction


This is an ordinary story about the most ordinary IT-employee, which, however, may be interesting to people of various professions. The article is not about how I achieved success in a particular IT discipline, whether it be programming, administration or design. My story is about how I ditched my back for 10 years of work in IT, and how then I cured it.

image

The purpose of my text is not to popularize yoga as a way of life, thinking or philosophy, it is just my personal experience, which, I hope, can be very useful to someone. I also want to note that the article does not urge you to self-medicate or deny traditional medicine, but it calls for self-organization and a more careful attitude to yourself, that is, NOT ignoring the problems and their roots.

Before writing the text, I studied the publications of my colleagues in the workshop, for example,this one , and I do not want to repeat it, but, in my opinion, my article has a slightly different direction, although it talks about the same subject. Plus, I hope that someone can be hooked, or, scientifically speaking, motivated, by that emotional background, on the rise of which I am writing this article. What is described below is perhaps my most significant achievement at this stage of my life. I just realized this and just can not help telling others about it.

How it all began and how it ended


So, it all started a long time ago and quite corny, like most of my compatriots. Namely: 10 years of sedentary life at school = problems with posture, + 7 years of sedentary life at the university = problems with posture (problems with the spine have apparently already begun) + 10 years of sedentary work in IT = problems with posture (already absolutely serious spinal problems). I periodically did some physical exercises such as playing soccer, snowboarding or occasional taekwondo trips, but, as it seems to me now, this is more likely negative than positively reflected on my back.

Having traveled quite a long way from a sick to a healthy back (or at least one that does not hurt and does not make itself felt), I realized that there are enough sports that you should not do at all until you have a good muscle corset around the spine. These sports in themselves do not create this corset, but they can cause considerable harm. I do not presume to say this with 100% certainty, since I am not a doctor, but I still think that I am not far from the truth.

As a result, by the age of 30, my back was something like a seedy Lada, which no one had ever serviced - it seems like it was driving, but it was about to fall apart.

From time to time, something stuck in my lower back and neck (or rather, under the shoulder blade), from a long sitting in one place I started to burn or stab something in the lumbar region, and sometimes it even gave me a leg when walking, but not so much that to panic or think about the fact that I may have a hernia and it’s time to finally go to the doctor. Well, you yourself all here know how it is with us in Russia - I won’t go to the doctor yet I can go, well, and then it’s too late to go :)) ...

The catalyst for back problems was a gift to me for my 30th birthday - my friends took off and gave me an ATV (!), A small one, such a Chinese one, but still an ATV. Meet him in the photo below. I scoffed in every way at myself and at this miracle of technology for three months, and then safely burned the clutch and went to repair it. This is where the real problems started: to repair the clutch, you need to remove the engine and take it to the place of repair. The engine weighs a little over 20 kg, and the repair place is on the 2nd floor of my country house. It seems that it doesn’t sound very scary, but two or three times the pull of this unit was enough for me to get so wedged and distorted that I understood: “it seems, that's it.” I remember that the upper part of my body was always about 10-15 degrees tilted relative to the lower (pelvis + legs), and I really could not walk in any other way.My wife (she is my doctor) pierced all sorts of miraculous solutions such as vitamins and anti-inflammatory, but it did not bring much effect - I really could not straighten for 2 weeks already.

image

I had to pull myself together and go to the doctors after all, and the first thing I did was to do an MRI, which I advise you too. Having done an MRI and his description with a doctor, you can save a lot of time and money, and possibly health, since you will not be engaged in those types of treatment that are either not suitable for you or are generally contraindicated.

MRI showed a rather sad picture - osteochondrosis, one protrusion and one hernia in the lumbar region - in fact, she, dear, is shown in the photo below. The consultation of the neurosurgeon was quite quick and clear - “the operation, you, the young man is not shown, live like this, do exercises and all the best to you!”. I remember the thoughts then I had from the darkest to the darkest type: “well, the worst thing is that the hernia will rub my nerve, I won’t feel my leg, I am amputated, it’s not the end of the world, you can live with one leg. .. ”. The reader is able to imagine the state of a person who considered himself more or less healthy and suddenly learns about irreversible or low-speed changes inside his body.

image

Fortunately for me, my wife was then at the 7th month of pregnancy, so there was very little time left for such a spleen, I quickly pulled myself together and began to think constructively - what can be done to correct the situation. I considered the following options and their pros and cons:

  • classic operation - hernia resection. Plus one and quite obvious at that time: no hernia - no problems, in fact, everything turned out to be not so simple. The minuses are also kind of obvious - all the risks associated with the operation, plus no guarantee that the situation will not get worse or stay the same.
  • “magic” operation - implantation of a disk from titanium (!), injection of healthy stem cells into a disk, etc. Pros - a magic pill that turns you into a superman. Cons - I do not believe in magic, well, or almost do not believe.
  • — , , , …
  • - : , , . — . — , , .
  • — , , , — , , , , 5 , , . , — . , , , , .
  • a gym is also a good thing, but there is a trick, or rather, subtlety. In the gym, it’s much easier to break your back completely than to fix it. I doubt that with hernias in the spine, you can generally practice in the gym, but if you do, then only under the supervision of a super-professional trainer who is aware of what he is doing.
  • yoga is a mysterious thing for me at that moment, but quite interesting. I will not paint all the pros and cons of yoga or try to give a super-accurate and comprehensive definition of this concept, I think others have done it for me a long time ago and much better.

I will give those arguments for which directed me along this path:

  1. — , 5000 ( ) , . , “ - ”
  2. , ( ), . : — , , , , , — , “” (, , ..), , Geo. — , , — — , — , — , .
  3. — ( ) - ,
  4. , , , , , .
  5. ( ),
  6. , — , , :)

So, I started doing yoga, it was about 5 years ago. I chose Iyengar yoga , I gave myself this definition of this direction: this is yoga for those who have health problems, it is simple, understandable, it is difficult to break something, while it is no less deep than everything else in yoga.

Here I have to talk about my first teachers - this is Lena and Marina. I am extremely grateful to them for all that they gave me. These are amazing people who, in my opinion, give the world around them much more than they receive from it, at least such a feeling is created during their yoga classes. They rush about like mad people in the hall, correcting all kinds of mistakes of students and explaining all the subtleties of this or that movement or asana, and adjust to the level of understanding of their student, not trying to burden him with something that he still will not be able to realize now. The best metaphor I could come up with for them is parents who have an infinite number of already adult children in the yoga room, they (I'm talking about teachers) really are parents who patiently and accurately guide each step of their 20-30-50 and sometimes 70 year old kids,who have just entered or have already walked a little along the path of yoga. I hope I haven’t loaded you too much, I can only draw one conclusion from the foregoing - carefully select a yoga teacher, especially at the beginning of your journey. If you do not feel holy awe and complete trust in the person who tells you something and shows something, then perhaps you should change the teacher.

So, I began to study and felt the first result after about 3-4 months. There was one event that inspired me great on the new path, and about which I cannot but tell. My wife, as expected, ended up in the maternity ward. I was with her, since we had a joint birth (these are such modern ways to be closer to each other who are not in the know). In general, this is such a four-hour amusement, when you are standing or sitting in not very comfortable poses all the time, helping your wife physically and psychologically - there’s absolutely nowhere for once to lie down to rest on your back for at least 5 minutes. Three months ago, when I “jammed”, I was even scared to imagine that I would spend 4 hours without rest, now, after three months of yoga, my back adequately endured these hardships,than I was quite impressed and inspired.

image

Then it’s better, after six months of regular classes (2 times a week with a teacher in the Iyengar yoga group) I really felt much better: I didn’t get pinched anymore, all the unpleasant processes while sitting at work also disappeared. I was able to return to my favorite snowboard, which I could not ride on for a couple of years, although I still “felt” my back while riding. After a year, I completely forgot that I had problems with my back and began to feel about 18 years old. After another 2 years, I became insolent and relaxed so much that I nearly ruined my back twice a year, getting up incorrectly at first on a wakeboard behind the boat (the absolutely crazy power of the gasoline engine almost bent me in half, because I rested the board against the water instead of getting up on the water, in general, was doing everything wrong and unsafe).The second time I was engaged in some kind of construction work and began to knead the cement in a slope, and again I “jammed”. I was quite upset, thought that I had lost everything that I had achieved in 3 years of study and returned to the “starting point”, but a couple of weeks of intensive training returned everything to its previous state.

Incidentally, this led me to the idea that regularity in classes is perhaps even more important than their intensity. Now I am working on doing yoga at least a little bit, but every day I am developing a habit in myself. Continuing the topic of regularity, I began to engage in 2 times a week and this, I repeat, was enough so that in half a year I really felt much easier, now I go to yoga 1 time a week and regularly do 20-30 minutes at home.

findings


  • go do an MRI of your back, especially if something hurts - do not spare money and time, diagnosis in the modern world is extremely simple and informative
  • if there is a health problem - start to solve it right now, then it will be more difficult, more expensive
  • choose the method that suits you, yoga personally approached me
  • , “-, , ..”,
  • — . , 80%, , “”, , . : — — — — .. // — , . — 3 , .
  • — , - ( , :)) , . .
  • “ ” — Yogda

P.S.


I, as a person with five years of yoga experience, now walk along the street (wherever I am) and notice posture and just the position / condition of the back of other people (girls, especially, of course), and it just takes horror - I feel sorry for people, and for the future of mankind (at least Russia) is really scary. The girls have a particularly bright problem for obvious reasons (for whom these reasons are not obvious - think about it)

By eye, 8 out of 10 who I see have problems with their backs, many of them have huge problems (you can say the hump is growing in the area of ​​the shoulder blades). I'd like to approach everyone and tell the whole story so that the person at least realizes that “there is a problem”, but due to my sociophobiashyness and decency paradigm, of course, I do not do this (perhaps in vain). This is directly the “curse of a seated person” of the 20-21 century. If you have any specific questions for me - write, I’ll be happy to answer them and tell you everything! I hope my article helps someone to change. If you cannot change yourself, then how are you going to change the world for the better ?!

PPS


Many thanks to Marina Katolikova, my good friend and excellent person with deep knowledge of the correct Russian language, for editing my article.

A couple of links at last:

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/undefined/

More articles:


All Articles