Spinal Stenosis Part 1

I have a couple of people that I am working with that have Spinal Stenosis. My first one runs the Boston Marathon every year. He is in his 60’s. God Bless Him. Spinal Stenosis is 2 discs that slipped and is pinching the nerve root. Plus he has 3 areas where it is herniated. When he first came to me his legs were hurting and in pain also. He was swimming, doing aerobics with weights, yoga and running still.

I had him stop the yoga, running and the aerobics . I had him continue with swimming. People don’t realize but water is very healing. It also can build your upper muscle strength. You’re using your arms more than your legs.

Yoga I had him stop because it was hurting him more when I started working on him. One people tend to tense up or strain when they do yoga positions which causes problems. It is not good. If you can’t relax into the position don’t do yoga you will cause problems. I get many yoga clients. The other problem with yoga is that in the western teachings you don’t learn much of the spiritual aspect of it and what not to do with clients with certain positions.

My client has high blood pressure and some of the positions people with high blood pressure are not supposed to be doing it which affects their high blood pressure in a very bad way. So I gave him some yoga positions that would work for him and his health. Not only are they stretching and strengthening the muscles they are decompressing the spine and helping his health improve.

Yoga is part of stretching exercises that you use in physical therapy. I also have him do the stretches in front of me to make sure that he is doing it properly in a relaxed position.

I also have him swimming. He started with 3 days of swimming into 4 days a week. What I did not know was that he kept running because no matter what I say he’s going to do this Boston Marathon. So I worked on his legs which are better and now I am focusing mostly on his spine and trigger points on his lower back so I can ease the pain but also take off a lot of the pressure from the area he has a problem with.

He was running 2 hours the longest before the pain started to hurt him. He was doing 18 miles without pain. Now he is running 4 hours when he starts to feel pain but it’s not so bad. I think the race is 6 hours if I remember correctly. So I will do the best I can to do what I can so he doesn’t get in worse condition. He did promise after the race he will take a break till he gets better.

The muscles I have worked on are many but right now my focus is on Quadratus Lumborum, Psoas major and minor, iliacus, erector spinae group, ligaments, iliac crest, serratus, scapula, rhomboids, interspinalis, intertransversarii, traps especially lower, intercostals, external oblique, spinalis thoracis, internal oblique, thoracolumbar aponeurosis, serratus posterior inferior, logissimus thoracis, and a couple more.

I am surprised at his improvement in such a short time. I have been working on him for about 2 ½ months. He is also going to the chiropractor which is helping improve quickly.