Hello friends, and welcome to Spring!

Welcome to my first newsletter! You are receiving this because you have been a current or past client, or are connected to me in another way. This month, learn about how to help your low back by stiffening your abdominal muscles.
 

St. Paddy's Day to Patriots Day Special

Until Patriots Day (that's April 19th this year), if you refer a new client to me and they mention your name, you'll get $20 off your next one-hour session. If you book a 1/2 hour session, you'll get $10 off. And it's not too early to start thinking about gift certificates for Mother's Day!

Office Walk-in Hours Update

On Fridays from 9am to 1pm, I'll be in the office for walk-in sessions and consultations. Otherwise, I'm booking sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 8am and 8pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays by appointment.

This Spring, Save Your Low Back With Your Abs

Spring is here and it's time to pick up after the winter storms and get our lawns and gardens ready for the summer. Here in southern Maine we got a break from shoveling snow these last few months, but our backs might already be complaining at the thought of all that bending and lifting that happens when we're working with plants and dirt!

By now, most everyone has been taught to "bend your knees, keep your back straight, and don't twist while lifting" in order to save your back from injury. These instructions are helpful, but don't tell the whole story. The two things clients most commonly report when we talk about this are: "How do I really bend over without bending my back?" and, "My knees hurt."

To bend over without bending your back, try folding at the hips and using your abs instead:

1. Stand up and place your hands on your hips just below the waistline where your pants, shorts, skirt, or dress will crease when you bend over.
2. Then, stiffen your abdominal muscles. This isn't sucking your gut in, it's just tightening those muscles a bit like you might if someone was about to tickle you.
3. Now, keeping your back relatively straight, "fold" at the hips.
4. Before you stand up again, make sure those abs are stiffened and your back is straight. Then unfold at the hips and stand up.

Try this a few times, then compare this to the more common way of bending over by letting your back flex and arch. For most everyone, folding will feel much easier on the body than bending the back. The following picture to the right shows my daughter Lilyana demonstrating this technique, even in her mother's heels.

Now, bending at the knees is more problematic for many of us because we spend our days sitting at a chair or in a car seat, or standing with our knees locked. We've gotten out of the habit of using our leg muscles, so when we do bend at knees we feel uncomfortable. Treating the work in the garden as an opportunity to exercise our leg muscles can help us deal with the discomfort, and we don't have to go all the way into a deep squat like Lilyana did in that first picture. Even part-way will make a difference for our backs, and here's Lilyana doing just that at in a sandbox.

If you feel in need of strengthening your low back, here's a short video with three exercises recommended by Dr. Stuart McGill of the University of Waterloo, one of the leading researchers in back fitness.