Spinal Awareness

This week's physical practices are focused on spinal awareness. Have an injury? Sit a lot? Perform repetitive movements? Disrupted sleep patterns? You better bet your spine is affected. These classes will help you loosen up tight muscles and make you feel taller when you're done.

8 facts about the spine:

1. Think the spine is just one structure? Not so fast. There are 4 separate regions/curvatures of the spine: the cervical (along the neck), thoracic (the part of your spine that attaches to the ribcage), lumbar spine (your lower back), sacrum (pelvic region), and coccyx (tailbone).

2. While the sacrum and coccyx are considered parts of the spine, each section is fused together and doesn't move.

3. So many bones! The spine is made up of many parts, including 33 individual bones (vertebrae) which are stacked and interconnected.

4. Do they fit together? Not exactly; the mobile vertebra are prevented from rubbing against each other by cushioned intervertebral discs.

5. Then how do the bones stay put? The vertebra are held together by ligaments that both stabilize the spine and protect these discs. The ligaments prevent your spine from too much movement.

6. The spine does more than just hold you up. There is a spinal cord inside the vertebrae that acts kind of like a highway where the brain transports messages to and receives messages from your muscles.

7. The spinal cord is 18 inches long and about as thick as your thumb!

8. If you have back pain, you are not alone. Roughly 7.5% of people in the world (about 577 billion people) have lower back pain.

Have back pain and want some relief? Consider signing up for your free consultation to find out more about how you can improve spinal awareness to help you in all of your day-to-day activities!