Yoga can correct your scoliosis problem

Guan Gan scoliosis

Scoliosis often occurs during adolescent development, develops rapidly, and becomes more serious in adulthood. It increases by 1 degree every year. Pregnant women will get worse and the condition will get worse. Scoliosis is a multi-cause disease that gradually develops with growth. Genetic and endocrine or physiological problems can all lead to scoliosis. The disease occurs more frequently in girls than in boys, with an approximate ratio of 8:1. The crux of the problem is that after many children are first diagnosed with the problem, doctors cannot predict whether the curvature will continue to develop to exceed 30 degrees, because the bones have not yet developed and formed, making it difficult to adopt a very effective treatment method.

In scoliosis, the spine bends to one side, which may be S or C (usually bends to the right on the upper back and left on the lower back), and the spine is sometimes distorted which causes the ribs to be forward on one side and backward on the other. If the spine bends to the right, the right rib will move backward, forming a ball, while the left rib will move forward, forming a hole, becoming a recessed area. When this occurs, the right ribs stretch outward, the intercostal muscles are overstretched, and the right intercostal muscles are squeezed.

This distortion occurs in minors and can create a domino effect that makes the body worse and worse, with shoulders in an abnormal configuration with one shoulder blade higher than the other, or one hip higher than the other, an unbalanced waist, and the head often leans to one side or protrudes forward rather than in the center of the pelvis. All of this imbalance will cause a series of pain and weaken the body. Headaches can occur frequently due to unbalanced head and shoulders, and tilted hips can cause lower back pain and sciatica. Soliosis causes wear on the spinal joints in the depression, causing the disc to degenerate or protrude. The pain in the depressed area is unbearable, resulting in insomnia, and abnormalities often occur in the cardiopulmonary system.

How to judge scoliosis

There are two forms of scoliosis: structural and functional (also called non-structural). In structural scoliosis, the vertebrae form a curved curve; in functional scoliosis, the spine is structurally normal and the curve that appears is caused by other causes of the body. For example: the body has long legs and one short leg. Functional scoliosis is usually less noticed than structural scoliosis, because bending and rotation are not serious and can return to normal in many cases. Usually the body adjusts itself, but functional scoliosis may develop into structural scoliosis if it does not recover well.

A simple method can determine whether you have structural or functional scoliosis: ask the subject to stand and bend forward and observe his spine. If the scoliosis disappears, it means functional scoliosis. If the curvature remains, and the rotation is more obvious, it is structural scoliosis.

For adolescent scoliosis, surgeons usually use X-rays. People with scoliosis exceeding 20 degrees are recommended to use circumferential splints. If it reaches 45 degrees or higher, doctors usually recommend surgery.

Use yoga to correct scoliosis

Yoga practice can increase lung capacity, reduce pain, correct posture, and prevent further deterioration of spinal curvature.

force that had been breathed

Start with some simple breathing exercises. For people with different forms of scoliosis, breathing patterns vary. For example, a person with a right-sided thoracic spine curve and a left-sided lumbar curve may find that during the initial exercise, he or she cannot breathe gas into the left side of his back when breathing, because the ribs and intercostal muscles here are tense. Gas can be deliberately introduced into the left side to open the ribs. But after a few months of practice, lung volume changes dramatically, and these changes are due to the relaxation of the ribs and intercostal muscles on the tense side. At the same time, the practitioner will begin to feel the spine returning to the center.

Once you understand where your mind is going and where it is restricted, you can direct your breath into underutilized areas while practicing your postures. Next time you try this simple exercise; stand, breathe in, raise your head over your arms, take a deep breath again, and pay attention to where the breath is filled and where the tension is? What's the difference between left and right? What is the difference between the beginning and the beginning? Up and down the lungs? Keep breathing, stretch your sides, and straighten your waist. Exhale and lower your arms from both sides, but keep your waist extended and your chest raised. Repeat several times, placing your consciousness on the area where the breath flows (Figure 1).

Find the median line (vertical line) of your body:

The next step is to practice keeping your body on a vertical line from head to toe. To do this requires a strong body sensitivity.

Practicing a simple standing pose, the mountain pose (Figure 2), can help you discover a more symmetrical body structure. If you lean heavily to one side, you should try your best to distribute the weight evenly on your feet and let others observe whether your hips or shoulders are unbalanced. Finally, adjust your head directly above the pelvis. Don't worry, if you still feel bent after these adjustments, just readjust until you feel on a vertical line. When you realize that lining up your bones, the muscles and connecting tissue around them can be relaxed rather than over-stressing or overworking, your body will become more relaxed. Remember that in every position you do, the goal is not to have your spine fully straightened one day, but instead try to find that somewhere in your body is becoming relaxed and flexible.

Stretch, strengthen, reverse rotate

In addition to discovering normal body structures through standing pose, you also need to practice some yoga positions to keep you in a normal posture throughout your daily life. A good set of exercises to balance scoliosis should include spinal stretching exercises. These positions can stretch tense muscles, increase the strength of weak muscles, and help eliminate abnormal rotation of the spine and rib cavities.

Lower dog pose is a good spinal extension pose. Imagine stretching your body naturally like a dog. If the hamstring is too tight, you can replace it with the puppy pose.

The next step is to increase strength. Especially for young students, because their bodies are in a period of growth and development, and their joints are very flexible. The locust style and its variants can strengthen the strength of the upper back muscles, protect the spine, and avoid further development of scoliosis. At the same time, women with amenorrhea also need to strengthen their muscles. In addition to upper back exercise, we should also insist on practicing standing posture to strengthen foot strength, and try to add triangle pose, strengthened side stretch pose, warrior first pose and warrior second pose to the practice. The therapeutic effect of the warrior's first style has two aspects. One is to strengthen the strength of the back, and the other is to stretch the waist muscles. As you raise your arms above your head, with your coccyx facing the floor, imagine lifting your torso to stretch your psoas muscles.

Since scoliosis causes the spine to rotate, doing simple rotations, such as the chair pose, is a very effective action. Remember, your spine is asymmetrical, so the feeling will be different when doing it on both sides.

Puppy style

Kneel on the mat, slowly move your hands forward, bend your toes to touch the ground, exhale, move your hips backward (toward your heel), keep your arms extended, without letting your elbows touch the floor, and place your forehead on the floor or on a blanket. Relax your neck, keep your lower back slightly bent, feel the spine extending, and stretch your arms with your hands downward. At this time, keep your hips and force toward your heels, inhale, feel the gas entering your back, and feel the stretching of your spine again (Figure 3).

Tips:

If you have a right thoracic curve or a bilateral curve (right thoracic curve and left lumbar curve), move your arm to the right (that is, to the protruding side), keep the arm and shoulder width, and allow your left arm to be fully extended. Inhale, introduce gas into the left chest cavity, stretch the intercostal muscles, and increase the spacing between the ribs. Return slowly (Figure 4).

If you have a left-sided lumbar curve, keep your arms extended forward and focus on stretching your hips backwards to stretch the compressed area, the right side of your waist. If the thoracic spine is bent to the left, then move the hand to the left (Figure 5).

Triangle Stretch (Right

Your feet are separated in parallel by about the width of both shoulders, turn your left foot slightly to the center of your body, your right leg 90 degrees to the right, and your feet are fixed on a line. Raise your arms at shoulder height, tighten your thigh muscles, and straighten your legs, but don't lock your knees. When inhaling and exhaling, bend your upper body to the right, place your right hand on the shin of your right calf, and your left arm upward (Figure 6).

Tips:

If you have a left or bilateral lumbar curve, stretch the right waist away from the hip joint, that is, stretch it up and far, and your feet must be fixed so that your attention is focused on the waist and extended sides of the body.

If you have a right thoracic curve or a right thoracic curve, stretch towards an imaginary chair. Place your right hand on the tibia of your right leg and your left hand on the sacrum (Figure 7). Inhale, move the right shoulder blade toward the midline of the body, open the chest, breathe, rotate the right chest forward, and keep the right shoulder blade extended backward. This exercise eliminates the rotation of the right chest and reduces the bulge on the right side. Then point the palm of your left hand forward to the ceiling, look forward, hold for a few breaths, and slowly return to the starting position. Repeat on the other side.

Triangle stretch (left

Tips:

If you have thoracic right curvature or thoracic and lumbar right curvature, take a folding chair and place it about one arm away from your left foot. Stretch the left side, place your left hand on the back of the chair, stretch the spine upward and far, stretch the left waist, place your right hand on the right rib and press downward (Figure 8) to help the spine return to the center position. You can also place your right hand on the waist to feel your breath (Figure 9), or stretch your right arm upward and palms forward (Figure 10).

If you have left or bilateral lumbar curvature, there will be a rearward bulge in the lower back. To adjust this protrusion, rotate the lower area of the left waist and back clockwise, fix the lateral side of the right foot to the floor, and stretch the area of the right lower back and pulp.

Locust style and its variants

This position strengthens the rhomboid muscle (a muscle in the middle of the back) and the lower part of the trapezius muscle, which has become weak due to scoliosis. Place a blanket or (pillow) on the yoga mat and lie on your face, stretching your arms forward to shoulder width. Inhale, lift your left arm and right leg, lift your head up hard, keeping your hands and feet at the same height, palm of your left hand inward, and your right hand downward to help support your body, breathe naturally, and hold for 5 to 10 seconds. Exhale, slowly restore, touch your forehead to the ground, breathe evenly several times, and relax your body (Figure 11).

When repeating the other side, if this side is weaker than the side, increase the holding time.

Exercise of lying on your side on the mat

Lie on your side on a cushion that supports the protruding bend (either your ribs or your waist). If you bend bilaterally, practice focusing on the upper bend first. Keep your legs straight or bend your knees while holding your hands above your head, feel the compressed ribs and waist stretch open, drawing gas into the new space that opens. For people with double lateral bends, do it on both sides, hold the position for 5 minutes, and then slowly get up and recover (Figure 12).

Rotate the right side of the chair (not pictured

For people with scoliosis, rotating exercises are very beneficial. Sit on your side, with your right body facing the back of the chair, place your right hand on the back of the chair, and keep your legs and hips still. Inhale, stretch the spine, exhale, exert force on the right arm, and turn the body to the right and back, starting from the navel, followed by the ribs and head. When twisting, the lower edge of the shoulder blades should be squeezed inward, applying force in the middle of the spine.

If you have right curvature in the thoracic spine or right curvature in the thoracic and lumbar spine, use force with your right hand to rotate your left waist forward. For people with curved right thoracic spine, apply force with the right hand towards the back of the chair, pull the right shoulder blade backward, open the right chest, and move the right ribs towards the center of the body's spine. At the same time, as the breath enters the left ribs of your body, stretch your left body, hold for 5 breaths, and then breathe out slowly back.

Rotate left side of chair

If you have thoracic right curvature or thoracolumbar right curvature or bilateral curvature, the right side of the costal cavity will form a bulge rearward. To alleviate this problem, use force with your left hand to push the right rib cavity forward.

If you have left or bilateral lumbar curvature, use force with your left hand to move your left back and back toward the midline of your body (Figure 13).

supine flexion

Sine back flexion can adjust humpback (i.e., a posture with the head lowered forward and shrugging shoulders), which is a form of thoracic scoliosis. Take a cylindrical headrest and lie on the headrest so that your shoulder blades touch the round headrest and your head touches the floor. If it feels too intense, roll a blanket into a cylinder instead of a round pillow. If there is a depression on the middle side of the back, place a towel under the depression to support the back. Stretch your body from the heels, especially the lower back, stretch your arms over your head and close them to the floor, and hold for 5 minutes to relax your back muscles. When you return, bend your knees, turn your body to the right, support your left hand on the floor, and slowly get up (Figure 14).

supine grab big toe

This position allows you to stretch the muscles of your lower limbs, lower waist and hips very safely. This stance is particularly beneficial for left lumbar bending, chest and waist bending on the right or bilateral bending, when the buttocks are often unbalanced. Focus on your hip joint.

Lie on your back and prepare two straps, one about 25 centimeters long and make a large ring, and the shorter one makes a small ring. Wrap one end of the large circular strap around the sole of the foot. Bend your right knee closer to your chest, with the large annular band closer to the base of your thighs and closer to your groin. Then put a small circular strap around your right leg, stretch your right leg, and hold for 5 breaths (Figure 15).

supine grab big toe

Place the strap in your right hand, exhale, and tilt your right leg slightly to your side, keeping your left side fixed to the floor. If you lift your left side, press your left hand against the ground next to your left hip. If the right lower limb is not very high off the ground, keep it this way and keep it for 5 breaths. Repeat these two actions on the other side (Figure 16).

Four common spinal curvatures

Although scoliosis can occur anywhere on the spine, there are four common forms of curvature in scoliosis. In order to more effectively apply yoga to the treatment of scoliosis, you need to undergo necessary examinations to know which form of scoliosis you belong to.

1. Thoracic right side curve In this form, the main lateral curve is concentrated in the thoracic region (common in the middle and upper part), and the curve is convex to the right. Only a small number will bend to the left at the waist (lower back).

2. The main curvature of the left lumbar curve is when the lumbar vertebra bends to the left, and only a few cases when the thoracic vertebra bends to the right.

3。The main curvature of the right side of the thoracic and lumbar spine is at the lower part of the chest column and the lumbar spine. This is commonly known as the "C" curve (it looks like the letter "C" when viewed from the front, and it is an inverse "C" when viewed from the back).

4。Thoracic right lumbar left curve mainly bends to the right at the thoracic spine and to the left at the lumbar spine. This is commonly known as the "S" curve (looking like the letter "S" shape from the front).

For some unknown reason, many scoliosis go to the right in the thoracic spine and to the left in the waist, and scoliosis in the opposite direction may occur in many parts, even the cervical spine.

Yoga not only relieves pain in the spine, but also allows you to learn to accept your body, which is also changing. Every time you start practicing yoga, remind yourself that you are not pursuing perfection, but reaching your best.

Yoga allows you to discover more balance, not only on the spine, but throughout life. (Editor in charge: Zhang Zhaoliang)