Gravity changes the forces that come through our spine, as our posture changes.
As we bend forward overtime, with or without back pain, or with an exaggerated curve, such as with scoliosis or hyperkyphosis, or with disc degeneration and osteoarthritis, we invite an asymmetrical load bearing through our vertebrae.
The result is the soft tissues inbetween the vertebrae become pushed out laterally and/or posteriorly into the open space, and into highly sensitive soft tissue structures along the outside, resulting in strain, pain and disability. What can we do?
We can apply Katharina Schroth’s Principle of Elongation.
Elongation, simply put is becoming tall. It is pulling your head out of your should girdle. It is elongating your neck. It is taking the turtle head out of the shell. It is imagining the back of your head being pulled up by a rope into the sky.
This is decompressing your spine. It is creating a space between your vertebrae. It is offering the intervertebral disc somewhere to go, to centralize, and to move away from highly neural structures. It is allowing that vertebral level and adjacent vertebral segments to be nourished. It is allowing the painful stimuli to be calmed.
Be the winner of your back pain, fight against gravity with Spinal Elongation.
