Stand Up Right

Overcoming back pain. Regaining mobility. Learning to stand up right.

Yoga for Posture – 12 – Rotator Cuff Curls

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Okay, we’ve done the primary back muscles with Baby Cobra. We’ve done the butt muscles with Bridge. We’ve gone twice ‘round on the core with Dead Bug and some tougher variations on Dead Bug.

Then, we began to stretch with Dragon Lunge, and continued with Downward Dog, Squatted Downward Dog and moved on to Puppy to decompress the spine. Then we stretched your pectoral muscles with Scorpion Twists.

The hard stuff began with plank push ups, and now it gets worse. I called these rotator cuff curls because, well, I didn’t really know what else to call them.

You see, the basic problems of poor posture are:

  1. Weak core muscles
  2. Tight chest (pectoral) muscles
  • Weak upper back and shoulder muscles

In order to improve your posture, you need to address all three of these. We started with the core, moved on to stretching the chest and now we need to mobilise and strengthen the muscles of the upper back and rotator cuffs. If you are anything like me, these exercises are going to suck, big time, because we gave our shoulders’ jobs to our back muscles, so we need to (in the words of my posture guru and yoga teacher) “Give your shoulders their job back.”

So, without further ado, let’s start strengthening those rotator cuff muscles.

Begin in table top position, with a neutral spine. Wait. Have I done a lesson on neutral spine? I can’t recall…I’ll add it to the list.

So, to strengthen the back rotator cuffs:

  • Begin in table top position:
    • On hands and knees, arms and thighs straight up and down. Lower back relaxed but neither arched up, nor curled down (we’re not doing cat/cow).
  • Pick a side and bend that elbow 90°, palm up
  • Lift that elbow up, rotating directly out from the body.
  • Keep your upper arm and elbow bent at 90°, watching the palm of that hand helps with this
  • Rotate as far as you can, and no farther

I said this particular exercise really sucks. If you are anything like me, your first time doing this is going to be hard. Your arm won’t move very far, it will hurt like hell, you’ll probably start to sweat, maybe even shake. Your back will try to get in on the action because, well, you gave your shoulders’ job to it. Don’t let it. Accept the suckage and make your shoulder do the work.

Give your shoulders their jobs back. As you do scorpion twists to stretch in the front, do straight arm push ups to return strength and mobility between the shoulder blades. Then do these awful rotator cuff curls to return strength to the cuffs, so they can take their jobs back.

I’ve tried not to sugar coat this exercise. When I began doing it, it royally sucked. If your posture isn’t as bad as mine got, good on you, it won’t suck as much. But if you really want to improve your posture, you need to fix your shoulders, and give them their jobs back.

Sloth is Also Persistent

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Last time I wrote that the changes persist. Since what I’m doing here is begging, imploring, pleading, telling you to make a change, to make an improvement, I wanted to show you that the benefits of doing so last. My regular Thursday posts are stories about how the changes multiply; changing one facet of your life ripples outward to effect change in other areas of your life.

In my specific case, the changes I set out to make was to improve my posture and yes, I certainly have much better posture than I used to have, but I also found that the exercises and changes to my movement patterns rippled outward. In addition to improved posture, the side benefits have included:

  • a dramatic reduction in the frequency and severity of my migraines
  • better sleep
  • reduced stress
  • the elimination of pulled groin muscles while playing hockey
  • a stronger, more resilient back and core, meaning household chores such as gardening, or shoveling the snow no longer cause my problematic back to act up

So, the changes persist, and the changes multiply. The longer you stick to your routine, the longer you just show up, the greater the benefits you will accrue, and the longer they will last. When I was discussing this with my wife, she pointed out that the reverse is also true.

If you are living an unhealthy lifestyle, the longer you live it, the greater the price you’ll have to pay to change. Change is hard. Inspiration is cheap. Goals are for suckers, systems win.

I lost six weeks due to illness, work, bad sleep, etc., but coming back was pretty easy. Six weeks is pretty small when measured against the years I have put into my routines. But what if I were just starting out?

Suppose it’s January, and I’ve made a New Year’s Revolution to get fit. Most New Year’s Revolutions don’t make it to February, but suppose I’m the exception, and I tough it out through the first weekend, the first month, even the first three months. Is it so much a part of my life that losing six weeks will have no effect?

Probably not.

The change made is very small compared to the enormous momentum of a lifetime of poor fitness, poor food, poor sleep.

My kung fu teacher talked about a wrestling coach who had a sign in his office:

Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent.

Damon told me this almost 20 years ago, so obviously it has stuck with me for a long time, and it is absolutely, completely 100% true. This being the case, then the question for you is, “What do I want to be permanent?”

Do you want health and vitality to be permanent?

Do you want sickness and dis-ease to be permanent?

The choice really is yours.

And the changes? They persist.

Real Change is Persistant

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Last time I wrote a little bit about change. At bottom, what I’m doing here is begging, imploring, pleading, telling you to make a change, to make an improvement.

Why?

Because I did. And if someone who is as stuck in his ways as this 50 year old engineer can change, anyone can. All it takes is a modicum of inspiration, a system and schedule, and the discipline to show up.

The benefits, well, the sky’s the limit. Look better and feel better. Eat better, get healthier and live longer. Conquer stress and improve your relationships. Sleep better, reduce your migraines. And the list goes on.

The best part of it all? The changes persist.

Tuesday I told you about my lost 6 weeks. I was sick and work got stupid busy, so I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t sleeping well and I wasn’t exercising. At the end of it, when I finally got back on track I expected my first couple of workouts to suck, which they did.

I had the usual gasping for air, weakness from exhaustion and, “I’m old, why am I doing this to myself?” thoughts running through my head. But that’s another story.

What I didn’t really expect was that after 6 weeks of missing not just my workouts, but also my daily back maintenance routine, when I got back to it I’d be…just fine.

For the Dominion Day long weekend, I took the kids to my Dad’s cottage. Three glorious, internet-free days playing outside. Along the way, I stressed my unexercised back with:

  • Long drives
  • Running barefoot on the beach
  • Canoeing
  • Splitting wood for marshmallow roasts
  • Sleeping in crappy cottage beds

But, and here’s the good part, after all that, upon coming back to real life, my back was…just fine.

Five years ago, when I embarked on my journey to fix my back, if I missed a single week I paid for it. Heck, when I began I did yoga for posture on Mondays and Wednesdays. Normally, by Saturday I was already feeling stiff and sore, and looking forward to Monday to get things fixed.

Now, after years of regular, back healthy workouts, after developing my personal back maintenance routine, the changes persist. They’re not permanent, and after 6 weeks I felt some soreness creeping in, but it’s minor. But since I’m back at it, I’m off the glide path to pain, and climbing back up to better health.

The changes persist.

So, make a change. For me, it was my back, and I gained a ton of other benefits along with.

And those changes persist.

I’ve been so healthy for so long, that being sick for a month was a shock. I’ve been fit for so long, that having a hard time surviving a double yoga/Pilates class was a shock. But then I think back to the beginning, and how hard it was to do a single class. I’m older, and a little slower, but with a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy back, I can still do more than when I was 40.

The changes persist.

An Agent of Change, Or an Agent Who Changes?

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When I first set out on this journey, I saw myself as the posture guy. Heck, I even made a little pun out that for my website name. But as I pursued it further, I began to see the interrelationships between posture correction and exercise in general. I began to explore the idea of integrating spine healthy workouts and posture, and began seeing myself more as the (posture healthy) exercise guy.

Then, over the course of the last few months, I’ve looked even farther across the horizon. I began telling y’all to make regular, vigorous exercise the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle, and began to explore the relationships amongst diet, exercise, sleep, stress, posture, etc. And found myself becoming more of the healthy lifestyle guy.

The thing is, so far all I’ve really concerned myself with is the physical. Get your body strong and healthy, eat right, sleep better, reduce the stress in your life. You’ll live longer, you’ll live healthier and you’ll live happier.

And it is here that I had another epiphany. A ways back I wrote about how a regular hot yoga practice saved my marriage, and helped me to become the daddy my little boys deserve. Exercise was the entry point to improved posture, then to improved health and well-being, better sleep, lower stress, all of which contributed to improved relationships, especially with those most precious to me.

It’s not about any one thing, it’s about an overarching desire to live better. But what is better? What does “living better” mean?

I was reminded today of the scene in City Slickers wherein Billy Crystal’s character was getting a life’s lesson from an old cowboy who told him the secret to life is one thing. But what is that thing, Crystal wondered? You have to figure it out for yourself.

What is your motivation for living well, for living better?

At bottom, mine came down to relationships. Primarily for my kids, and then my wife, and on down the line from there.

So here, we come to a new place. Sure, I’m still the posture guy, and I will continue posting Mondays and Thursdays on that. Yes, I’m still the exercise and workout guy, and will continue posting on that. But now…what?

The process of sweating out the stress, cleaning up my diet, learning to live better and develop better relationships was transformative. Does that make me the transformation guy? I don’t know, I’m really still the same guy I was 6 months ago before I started writing more often. All I really did was tell stories documenting my journey, and in the process clear it up in my own head.

And it’s important for me to stress that this was my journey, not yours. One of the things that drives me most crazy about busybodies is that they think they know how to live your life better than you do. I’m certainly not that guy.

Am I the healthy lifestyle guy? Am I the living better guy?

I think that’s a little better being the transformation guy. My lifestyle improvements did for me what I needed, when I needed it. For now, how about I continue to advocate living better, living healthier and living longer so you have the time, energy and clarity of mind to figure it out for yourself. No busybody, I.

So for now I say to you, for your health and wellbeing, get your ass to the gym.

After All, You’re Only Human

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I’ve been spotty in my writing for the last little while. I told you about losing a chunk of May and June to a terrible chest cold, combined with a really nasty sinus infection. Well, when I finally got over all that, started getting back into regular writing I got hit with a very busy month at work, and another go around with my chest and sinuses.

This is new territory for me, I don’t often get sick, and when I do I generally get over it pretty quickly. For me to lose the best part of 2 months to infections that not only wouldn’t go away, but once I finally rid myself of them came back almost immediately is unheard of. That is, in fact, one of the great benefits of the healthy lifestyle I advocate; improved immune system response.

The problem is, I wasn’t getting over it. And because I was sick, my energy was low, so I wasn’t exercising enough. And because I wasn’t exercising enough I wasn’t:

  • Eating enough
  • Eating right
  • Sleeping well
  • Destressing myself

In short, I was trapped in the vicious cycle of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Fortunately for me, working out isn’t just something I do, it’s a cornerstone. When I’m not exercising regularly I feel lousy, and because it’s so much a part of my life I am (eventually) compelled to return to the gym. Seriously, I get an itch to get out there and sweat, and strain, and push my body. I don’t want to, I have to.

So (eventually) I did. And while it sucked as badly as you may have suspected, I will not treat you (today) to another version of “Paying the Iron Price.” My return to yoga and Pilates sucked as bad as you might expect, and the recovery was as tough as you might expect, but I did it.

And on the way home from my first class back a strange thing occurred; my stomach started growling. My appetite returned, I had a good dinner, and the first decent night’s sleep in weeks. The vicious cycle was broken, I began to feel better. I went again the next night (to a double, hot Pilates followed by hot yoga, so help me) and it sucked even worse, but I’m back.

Still, I was guilty. I enjoy writing, and I was getting some ribbing about, “where’s that StandUpRight guy?”

A funny thing about creating content. When you’re doing it, it’s easy. When you’re not, it’s hard. When I’m posting daily, I can get an idea and write something quickly. When I fall down the rabbit hole, it’s hard. And feeling guilty about not creating makes it harder. So I don’t create, don’t write, don’t publish, and feel guiltier. And it gets harder.

And around and around another vicious cycle we go.

But then I took a few days off to take the kids to the beach. I packed my computer with full intention of getting back on the horse, and getting content out there again. I was gonna kick myself in the butt, pull myself up by my bootstraps, suck it up, get over it and just do it. Apparently what I was going to do was cliché my way back.

Anyway, we got to the cottage, and…there was no internet.

Oops.

As so often happens for me, this setback turned out to be a blessing. True, I had no internet, but neither did my kids. And we spent the weekend playing together, reading together, being together, enjoying each other. I live the life I do, in great measure, for them and sometimes I get so focussed on the process I forget the purpose. An extra long weekend, with zero screen time, reminded me of what is truly important.

And then, BANG, epiphany time.

Somewhere along the way I told you that in your efforts to start a new, healthier lifestyle, you’d fail. You’d fall down; miss workouts, cheat on your diet, screw up your sleep, whatever, and I told you to forgive yourself. Great advice, and my epiphany was, “Hey, I can do that too.”

So even when I got internet back, I didn’t throw myself back into writing. I was taking time to spend with my family, and that’s what I did. But I made myself promise that, after the long weekend, I’d go right back at it.

And here we are.

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