3 Reasons to Walk

1) Great for your Back

Walking is non negotiable for eliminating back pain. 

Walking fast unloads the spine and challenges the later parts of the spine and core.

Don't walk slow. Slow walking does the opposite and loads the spine.

Keep your head up and chest forward, poor posture is bad for the back.

Make sure you're swinging your arms, 

Aim for 2-3 twenty to thirty minute walks a day.

2) Great Low Impact Cardio

You can burn around 120 calories with one thirty minute session.

Do that 3 times a day and you're burning 360 calories!

Do that 7 days a week and you're burning over 2500 calories a week!

That's over an entire days worth of calories for most people.

And you're doing it all without hurting your knees, feet, ankles, and back.

You're actually healing your back!

3) Great for Productive Meditation

In the book 'Deep Work' by Cal Newport he recommends walking as a way to be only occupied physically and not mentally. Allowing you to focus on a single problem.

Many poets, writers, scientists, and Greek philosophers have all used walking as a way to bring about their best ideas or answers to perplexing problems.

Isaac Newton was well known for wondering around in endless thought.

Go ahead, google some examples. It's endless!

Runners Up Include:

Boosts brain power, fights dementia, heart disease, high blood pressure, stress, and most importantly your dog will love you for it.

For more information on walking helping your back pain, check out the book the 'Back Mechanic' by Stuart McGill

For more information on productive meditation checkout the book 'Deep Work' by Cal Newport.

Back Pain

BACK PAIN 

You're only allowed so many bends throughout the day. Save them for things like tying your shoes, not sit ups.

Don't do sit ups. They stopped doing them in the military.

Your back hurts most in the morning because you're superdehydrated.

Stretching by pulling knees to chest may feel good today, but will hurt you more tomorrow. You're flexing your back and putting yourself in a dangerous position.

Find what's hurting your back, stop doing that, work on strengthening what's lacking.

Don't ever get surgery. It may alleviate one pain, but open up a whole new world of problems that you can never fix.

Many people have herniated and/or bulging discs, but don't even realize it because they're not in pain yet.

Enlarge your computer screen to 150% so you don't have to lean forward.

Common thought is that you hurt yourself through some sort of event. Disc herniation is not an overnight thing. It's bad habits/posture/form that have lead to this happening.

If you're in pain during an exercise you've gone beyond your capacity, stop it. Your body is telling you something.

Squatting is appropriate for getting off a toilet or chair but not for dropping to the floor. Instead, do a lunge that does not bend your spinal discs and is a much more appropriate choice

Athletes with the most abdominal flexion have the most injured discs, think gymnasts.

80% of people have back pain.

People with back pain tend to use their hamstrings more, when they should be using their glutes.

Doing glute bridges reinforces the idea of using your glutes.

Curl ups, Side Planks, Bird Dogs are all good exercises to rehab your back.

Back pain is not a life sentence. Just have to take an effort to rehab it.

Genetics play a part in it. Slender spines are great for golfing but terrible for football. Thicker spines are great for football but are terrible at golf.

Some people have deeper hip sockets than others. Not everyone is meant for squatting deep.


For more info from Stuart McGill, check out http://www.backfitpro.com/