The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion
by steve
(mylowerbackpain)
Egoscue - Health Through Motion
By Pete Egoscue with Roger Gittines.
The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion isn't a book specifically about back pain - it's about our overall condition and how, due to our sedentary lifestyle, we have let our bodies slip out of their natural state and into conditions of chronic pain.
Pete Egoscue, an "anatomical functionalist" in San Diego, strongly believes that the human body isn't as frail as is sometimes made out. Knees aren't weak joints, back's shouldn't cause problems. It's only when, for year after year, we abuse our bodies by forcing them into unnatural positions (for example, sitting for hours at a day) that dysfunctions build in and it's those dysfunctions that eventually cause the problem.
All because we don't allow our bodies to behave in the way nature intended.
Pete Egoscue's book was like a bolt from the blue when I first read it - and over the last few years I have begun to realise more and more just how much danger we put ourselves in simply by moving away from the lifestyle that nature originally designed us for. And I don't just mean our sedentary, car-obsessed, computer driven lifestyles but also the food we eat and the chemicals we use.
But back to the book. The book identifies three "conditions" and includes stretching regimes to address all three.
Me, I have conditions I and II - and I still have them despite having owned the book for a couple of years now. (Condition I is the one that gives me most problems.) I think the problem is fundamentally that once I've sorted the back pain, I lose the impetus to carry on with the exercises - so I stop the stretching (which can take up to an hour). And as a result I still have the underlying conditions that are causing me pain.
However, just because I (so far) haven't had the discipline to stick with the regime doesn't mean I don't think this is a great book.
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