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Community First Health Coop hosts Violence Against Women session Wednesday

Contributor
By Contributor
June 10th, 2012

The Community First Health Coop is sponsoring a free education session titled, Violence Against Women – Why doesn’t she just leave?, Wednesday (June 13th) from noon to 1 p.m.

Lena Horswill and Anna Maskerine will lead the presentation.

The Community First Health Coop Education Series started Wednesday, May 9th when Dr. Kevin McKenzie, chiropractor, conducted a sessionon  “Moving, sitting correctly and doing the right, not the wrong exercises”.

Participants were treated to a very informative session on Lower Back Disk Pain- Simple Exercises to Prevent or help Resolve it.

Dr. McKenzie began with a quick survey and found that only two of the participants had not suffered from back pain. 

“80% of people will experience acute or chronic back pain; it places the highest demand on our medical system.”

The session was built on the work of Dr. Stewart McGill, a PHD researcher who has built a life of research into some practical applications for all of us.

 The anatomy of the spine was shown; how our spine begins to curve as a child when we lift our head and then continues to curve as we crawl and why the forward curves of our spine is what we must maintain for good back health.

If we move our spine to far forward and out of the natural curve, then we move the disk to the back and that is what causes the ‘ jelly ‘ inside the disk to move and eventually become a disk bulge on the spinal nerve or a prolapsed disk.

So what exercises should you never do? 

According to Dr. McKenzie, the “silly exercises” are:  touching your toes with straight legs, the straight leg sit-up, full sit up, straight leg lift while lying on your back and pulling your knee up to chest from a lying position. 

He also suggested that doing some gentle moving before beginning any exercises and not to exercise until you have been up for an hour will help prevent lower back problems.

“If you are working out at a gym or taking classes, you need to be your own advocate.  Know your limit and peel back your exercises so they are not painful “

“ When sitting make sure you back is against the back of the chair, you change position often and use a good back support when driving or sitting for lengths of time”   As you age, we think disk degeneration is normal, remember it is not normal, it is common.” 

Dr McKenzie then had the audience up practicing the pelvic sway and the pelvic shift as a way to reduce the lateral component of a lumbar disk derangement. 

“Core stabilization equals distal mobility” this simple mantra led us into a chance to try the exercises that are the best for back pain. Abdominal bracing, cat/camel warm-up, plank position, lunge, side bridge, curl up, and back extension are the exercises that we should be doing to strengthen our back.

Dr. McKenzie answered questions and we all left with a better understanding of how we are responsible for our back health and how easy it can be, if we follow a simple and safe routine, to keep our core strong and our back safe.

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