This book cured me
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This book is excellent, however to gain any benefit you MUST.
1. Do the excersises exactly how they are described.
2. Do them as often as he tells you to - every 2-3 hours (find a quiet place at work!)
3. Persist! It will take time and will cause more pain initially - it gets a bit worse before it gets better, but your back isn't used to being put in these kinds of positions - at least not for many years.
4. Buy a lumber roll. Don't underestimate how good these are. Take it with you everywhere - even on public transport.
5. Continue to do them even when you feel better.I bought this book when I was in trouble with my back - sciatica pain - and could hardly walk, couldn't get out of the car, and couldn't walk upstairs (coming downstairs was alot easier than going up!) and always had to sleep sitting up in bed (actually doing more harm than good, but I couldn't sleep otherwise). It was excruciating. I did the excersises and got better, then put the book away and carried on my life as normal (BIG MISTAKE) - only for the pain to return. After analysing my lifestyle I found out the bouts of sciatica pain often followed long periods of inactivity. For example, I would be fine during late autumn and winter, then as soon as the better weather started in the Spring I would become more active and the pain would come back big time. I also always suffered after sitting in an airplane seat for 4 hours - spoiling our holiday with back pain. Since using this book religiously, I have learned how to control my back instead of my back controlling me.
I have now been pain free for exactly 12 months - normally I have 3-4 bouts of sciatica every year, each used to last for 6-8 weeks.
Now that I'm pain free, I still do my excersises 3-4 times a week (slowly reduced from several times a day), and do extra excersises if I've been doing anything that involves my back - decorating, gardening, leaning over a car engine etc.
In the past few months, things have improved so much that I can now feel when my back is under strain, I immediately do the 'extension while standing' excercise and I can hear my back click back in place, this has never happened before and I am really reaping the benefits of continually obeying the excercises and 'rules' in this book.
I work in IT and spend about 10 hours sitting in front of a PC. A lumber roll has improved my posture massively and stopped my 'hunching' over the keyboard like 99.9% of my collegues - some of whom also suffer and I have recommended this book.
DO NOT GIVE UP. Make this book a part of your life - you've only got one back - look after it!
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Full of Information
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7 Steps takes you through a number of steps that will focus on your spine and body positions while sitting and standing. The exercises were not too hard to do but neither did they resolve my lower back pain. The chapter on sitting infront of the computer was very helpful and I caught my self doing things that are not good for my back. There are only a few exercises with most of them having you bend backwards.Overall a good book with information about the spine and body positioning. Also highly recommend "The Backsmart Fitness Plan" by Dr.Adam Weiss well written and detail stretches and core training movements that helped me alot.
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Invaluable
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I can only comment on the neck section of this book as I have not suffered from a bad back. I bought this book for my father who suffers with both and it lay unopened until I woke up one morning with terrible neck pain. I suffered in agony for about a week until I remembered this book, and then wished I'd remembered it much sooner. The first exercise started to work immediately and within a couple of days I was completely cured. The book is panned out with a lot of waffle, as are most, but I found just the one exercise invaluable and didn't really need to bother with the rest. It is the first neck exercise which is really easy to do and literally takes seconds.
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Full of information
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I picked up this book hoping to better understand the cause of my back pain and I am happy to report I did learn a lot of information on the function of the spine and proper siting at one's desk at work and home. The exercises were easy to follow and to perform. Only negative is it only had about a half of dozen exercises on the floor and all of them had me looking up at the ceiling all day and repeated over and over again.Helped a little after doing them for the past few months. Over all good reading for someone who wants to learn more about the back and the muscles and how they function. Also recomend the Backsmart Fitness Plan By Dr.Adam Weiss- many soild core and abdominal exercises and stretches for the whole body. Recommend both books.
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It misses one thing.
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This book really combines two of the author's other bestselling books, "Treat Your Own Back" and "Treat Your Own Neck." The treatment provided to the reader is basically to watch your posture and do exercises where you bend your spine backwards (called extension exercises). This seems like good advice and will no doubt help out some people. For me though, bending backwards did not agree with my back. One thing is glaringly absent from this book though--strengthening exercises for the back muscles. I did a little digging around and found that people with back pain actually have smaller than normal back muscles (Danneels,2000 and Parkkola,1993) when examined with CT scans and MRI's. People with back pain also have much weaker back muscles as well (Cassisi,1993 and Roy,1989 and Mayer,1989 and Mayer,1985 and Smidt,1983). I am thinking that since it is so well documented in the medical literature that the majority or back pain sufferers have smaller and weaker back muscles, a book on back pain for the masses should definitely have included an exercise to strengthen the back muscles. I therefore recommend that buyers of this book use it in conjunction with a back strengthening exercise. For that, I recommend "The Multifidus Back Pain Solution" (also here at Amazon) to learn an easy back strengthening exercise you can do in your own home.
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