Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett › Forums › General › low back pain for 8 years › Re: low back pain for 8 years

12/03/2013 at 1:20 pm #73350
AvatarNathan Richer
Participant

re: fatigue in muscles

yes definitely you could feel fatigue in muscles and in your mind.  you are waking up and firing muscles which were designed by nature to fire all day long in good posture, but due to 21st century life we end up wasting those muscles away.  also you are increasing your mindfulness to this and that can be very tough to retain full waking attention on it all the time – which will eventually move to unconscious and automatic over time.
always remember 20% in the torso, but also very important to have 20% in the glutes especially whenever you stand.  the 20% in the glutes will help yank your pelvis down in the back, reducing anterior pelvic tilt and bringing it more to neutral.
in the gokhale method, you’ll find a chapter on glide walking – one of the most useful things i picked up. basically you learn how to walk with your glutes.  very interesting and very applicable to other stuff like running.
a good measure of posture is to line up straight up and down:
ear hole
center of shoulder
elbow center
hip center
knee center
ankle
sometimes we use a stick to practice:

you must keep contact in the 3 points and practice with deadlift movement.

we also use walls to practice:


at the end he talks about using the upper hamstrings to pull your pelvis down.  this is related to glute contraction, but often we need to contract glutes to get our hams to fire.  try firing your hams by themselves while standing – it’s pretty tough!

as for Gokhale – the DVD is excellent – i tend to like video better than static images. but reading the book gives you some other info about how gokhale came to be.  

the parts in gokhale i question are:

1. it is missing 20% glute contraction 
2. they promote breathing with the upper body. i think diaphragmattic breathing is a much more desirable goal.
3. they use the term anteversion of the pelvis which i couldn’t find any reference to except here.  they promote anteversion of the pelvis – which seems to mean anterior tilt – all the time but i think this is wrong when standing. you don’t want too much anterior tilt or else you’re gonna sway.  when you sit, tilting the pelvis forward is more desirable, and tougher because our psoas and other hip flexors have gotten weak and taut from sitting too much.

still despite these 3 points, the rest of the content is excellent.  i would recommend taking a class if you have an instructor nearby. go to http://www.gokhalemethod.com to take a look.