No doubt you are aware of that "big, long, bony thing" located in your back but are you fully aware of your spines AWESOMENESS and how vital it is to look after if you want to live a long and pain-free life?
Let me try to help you understand...
Main purpose of the spine:
To support the weight of the body
To provide flexibility for movement
To protect nerve roots and fibres in spinal cord.
10 interesting facts about the spine:
The spine is the first bone to start to grow when we are in the womb.
Our spines consist of 7 bones in the neck (Cervical), 12 in the middle back (Thoracic) and 5 in the lower back (Lumbar).
About 10% of the population have 6 lumbar vertebrae instead of 5.
We have over 120 muscles that support the spine, over 100 joints, and over 200 ligaments.
In between each vertebra are discs primarily made up of water.
There are 13.5 million neurons (or nerve cells) in the spinal cord.
The spine is very flexible. So flexible that if you bent it as far as it could go, it would form two-thirds of a complete circle. (Don't try it without a warm up first though lol)
After the age of 40, the average person shrinks as much as 8mm every ten years.
Your spine carries more than a million electrical nerve messages between your brain and your body every single day.
Approximately 80% of Adults experience some form of back pain in their lives.
Potential issues with spine:
As one of the KEY areas in the body, used every single minute of your life, it's no surprise that problems occur - often unavoidably - and some of the most common issues experienced worldwide are:
- Herniated Discs
- Muscle Strain
- Poor Posture
- Osteoporosis
- Sciatica
- Osteoarthritis
- Spondylolisthesis (try saying that with your eyes shut!)
I'm NOT a doctor or Physiotherapist so I can't go into detail about any of these conditions specifically however I can say as someone who has worked with 100's of clients "post-physiotherapy" it is clear that movement is usually a great medicine for your spine!
Do you care for yours?
Just a few minutes of active mobility a day could make a HUGE difference to our spinal health and give us the best chance of being one of the 1 in 5 who go through life without back pain.
Try Froga to get started!
Frank-Style-Yoga was created to help YOU get safe stretching and flexibility into your life and if you head to the Workouts library and use filter to find "Froga" and you'll have 100's of videos from just 5 minutes to 45 minutes all ready to follow along anytime of day.
Lifting Weights Can Help Too:
Contrary to many peoples thoughts Lifting Weights Can Be AWESOME For Your Spine if performed safely and effectively. Below is a link to an interview I did with Mark Goodwin who himself has recovered from serious back injury and now uses strength training as his main source of protection...
Final Word:
To finish this blog post today I just want to re-iterate the importance of your spine and can only hope you start to think about how you treat it each day, and incorporate some form of movement to help it stay happy because the benefits will be HUGE not only to avoid pain but also to THRIVE with all other forms of exercise and living your life without restriction.
Hope this gentle reminder helps you consider some action today :)
Love 'thy spine team.
Good luck!
FRANK
your Personal Trainer / Spinal Blair