This is the story of a low back injury that could happen to anybody. Last year, I started to play golf and I enjoy the game very much. In my opinion golf is a strategic sport that requires excellent awareness and flexibility rather than body strength. It does however add a lot of torque to your spine, knees and low back. In fact, it adds torque to all the body lines. After each practice or tournament, I need to readjust my body due to the asymmetric strokes are be used repeatedly.
In addition to golfing , I also work out at the local Crossfit Box http://www.crossfitsantaynezvalley.com twice a week, to add some strain training and cardio. Well this time I skip to work on myself after a Golf Tournament on Sunday, and here I am starting my day a@ Crossfit with 20 pound wall balls and a supposed 150 repetitions.
By 20 reps, I was rolling on the floor with back spasms so painful that I dragged myself to my car with huge difficulties. The only way I could walk that bend over with little leg movement. That never happens before. Between you and me, if your body has been doing a asymmetric movement for more than 5 hours, chances are that your body shows signs of this repetitive motion. Staring Crossfit with my body off of balance reinforces the problem and my body did not like it. As a Certified Rolfer, I should know better by now. A hot shower relieved some of it, I could barely put on my socks, and I was still in pain when my first client arrived for this Rolf Session. When my client arrived, I had to apologize for my unprofessional body posture. The funny thing is that my every day work is to help people to regain great posture and body awareness and be free of pain. And here I am one of them – Welcome to the Pain Club! There is no way that I am taking any pain relief medication, but I can wait to have this problem fix. My first client of the day has some compassion for me and asked if we need to cancel this session. I denied upon which he asked me where I go to get my back fix. I answered him something like this: ”Well I help people be pain free every day and I can do the same for myself”. Occasionally, I do need a chiropractor. So between each client that day I worked on myself and by noon I could walk almost without pain. It is not perfect but way better compare to this morning. I kept myself moving all the time instead of protecting myself for the pain.
The moral of the story and my lesson: when I participate in rotational sports, I have to follow up with corrective movement and exercise to rebalance my body alignment and to be able to function properly through my working day. I am no exception.