Ow. My back.

An estimated 80% of Americans will develop back pain during their lifetime. One of the biggest culprits for back pain is core strength, or lack of it, or even more accurately is our challenge to access and engage it. Oh yea, and sitting. A lot. And also slouching. A lot. Slouching requires absolutely no engagement of core or low back. Instead it puts a lot of pressure on the lower back spine which also pulls our hip flexers into tight and shorten, weakens them, adding another component to back pain. Oh, and when we slouch, our heads extend forward putting excess pressure on our cervical spine, and we exacerbate our pain areas. Ow.

I need some good news!

Yoga is quite helpful toward reducing back pain because there's many opportunities in the practice to discover how to actually activate core so it gets stronger and better able to support all those vertebra. Yoga also teaches us how to lengthen through the low back, gain strength through the hips and correct alignment for our skulls hanging over our cervical neck spine. 

Can you guess what this week's practices might be about? We'll be targeting your lower back. It's time for some low back love. It's also never only about one part of us. 😉 Yoga is a yoking of all our parts. Happy back, happy hips, happy necks, happy hearts. I can't wait!

Jill 💟