I ripped a pair of pants.
I wish I were kidding, it was embarrassing. This made me realize that the average person can’t move from the hips, based on popular wardrobes! Don’t let your tight hips kill your low back. The hip is a glorious tri-axial joint, with a ball-and-socket range of motion. Your sitting locks it down. Your pants are doing it, too! Your low back will start to move for a hip that can’t. This results in low back pain, disc arrangements, and joint degeneration. The low back has uniplanar, sliding joints. It isn’t structurally designed to move for your hip. Demand more out of your hip and create some low back stability. Get pants that move better. Test your pants in the dressing room with the fullest squat you can currently achieve. You learn by studying. Observation and action are also a form of study. So, your surroundings matter. What you observe and study matters.
I surround myself with brilliant clinicians and teachers, and I try to integrate every sound bite of brilliance I can catch. When you think you know enough, you don’t. Know more. I surround myself with people stronger than I, so my technique can be picked apart as I load proper patterns. “The belt is only a performance tool. Build authentic stability. If you’re using the belt for stability, you shouldn’t be lifting that weight.” – Jason Kapnick, Elite Powerlifter When you think you’re strong enough, you’re not. Do more. When you think you’ve studied enough, you haven’t. Study more. I surround myself with patients, colleagues, and friends that inspire me in myriad ways. A life of complacency is not one that drives me. I will always want this burning feeling of wanting to know more, do more, be more. My surroundings help maintain that feeling. And I’ve never been happier. I had four patients utter the same words to me this week:
“Deadlifting is hard.” Another asked a solid question: “Why is it so hard NOT to slouch?” Slouching is easy. You’re falling with gravity into the fetal position. You’ll go there if you don’t fight it. Deadlifting is hard. It takes strong and stable shoulders, hips, torso and back to hold the body upright. Your 9 months before birth were in the fetal position. Once you entered the world, you spent nearly every waking moment fighting to earn some extra curves. You wanted to hold your head up. You reversed yourself out of the fetal position to hold up your head. You wanted to crawl and walk. You rocked your hips over, and over, and over to earn your low back curve. You could not be kept in the fetal position any longer. You earned those extra curves. So, what happened? Life happened. As your priorities changed from movement, you let yourself fall comfortably back into the fetal position. But make no mistake: you once spent the first year of your life earning and maintaining those curves, so that you could walk. So, walk. You earned it. Hold your head up. You earned it. Sit your hips back and maintain your lumbar curve. You earned it. Don’t let that first year of constant work be for nothing. |
AuthorSA little from Dr. Dan, a little from Lisa but always a lot of good stuff! Archives
January 2024
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