Ease the load on your lower back

Hello beautiful friends,

My message for today is to invite and encourage you to create a strong foundation for your spine to be more at ease and alive simultaneously.

If you’re someone who experiences lumbar spine pain, there’s a very simple two-step practice you can do every day to diminish the strain and tension in your lower back. 

This practice may even promote improved core activation and strength.

Firstly let’s look at tension. Tension arises in your body in response to a host of factors from postural to psychological.

Your body will tense in specific areas with postural imbalances such as standing with your weight shifted mostly onto one leg. Or the body may tense to protect an injured area, either due to weakened tissues or in response to pain or the ‘remembered’ threat of pain. Overuse or repetitive movement or the opposite – a lack of movement – can both create tension. Poor breathing patterns and emotional stress .... the list goes on.

The body also produces extra tension in an attempt to create stability.

Interestingly, it's possible for all of these factors to be influenced through this practice I’m sharing today, some in more tangible ways and others at a subtle level. Whether you have postural imbalances, old injuries, shallow breathing or nervous tension this practice will enhance or support your body from the inside out.  

Gifting Ourselves a Solid Foundation

One of the most common postural blind spots begins at the feet: standing with them too close together unknowingly narrowing the foundation upon which the body must stand.

When the feet are positioned too narrowly, the base of support is reduced. In my observation, this often goes hand in hand with a tendency to lock or hyperextend the knees. Although this may create a feeling of stability, it can also reduce the body's capacity to make the subtle adjustments needed for balance. When you combine these two factors – reduced base of support and impaired balance – more of the work of stabilising the body shifts upwards into the hips and lumbar spine.

A Narrow Stance And The Core

I've also observed that people who habitually stand with their feet too close and /or their knees straight or locked often subtly thrust the pelvis forwards. This can shift the body's centre of gravity forwards and may increase the demand placed on the muscles and structures of the entire back body - the lower back, spine, buttocks, hamstrings and calves, while also contributing to increased tension through the important deep lumbar stabilisers, the psoas muscles.

Over time, this combination of a narrow base, locked knees and a forward-thrust of the pelvis may contribute to a pattern of increased tension through the lumbar spine and anterior hips, AND influence the way the deeper abdominal muscles, including transversus abdominis, are able to contribute to the support and stabilisation of the lower back and trunk.

What appears to be a small postural habit at the feet can therefore have consequences much further up the body. The body is an interconnected system: when the foundation is narrowed, the joints and muscles above may need to adapt in order to create the stability the body requires.

The first step towards changing this pattern may simply be to notice your feet:

Are they providing a broad and stable foundation?

Are your knees softly released, allowing the body to make the small, continuous adjustments required for balance?

So remember these two steps:

Stand with your feet apart.

Soften your knees.

Can you see that these two simple steps increase your base of support in all directions - side to side (feet), front and back (knees) and circular (combination of both)?

Just How Far Apart Should My Feet Be?

A rule of thumb is that your feet should be positioned approximately the length of one of your feet apart. If this feels too strange to begin with, start smaller. Softening your knees then allows your body to adapt more readily to this positive change in your foundation.

Sometimes, improving your posture need not begin with trying to hold your body in a particular position, but by giving it a more stable foundation from which to organise itself.

So do yourself and your lower back a favour, and broaden your base of support.

With your ease and comfort in mind,