Thank you for taking the time to follow up a little bit more about me and my story and how I came to present this information to you today. And right now we're going to be looking at how you get rid of your low back pain. So very similar to what we're talking about here, you can actually see in the, in the diagram here, the this area where if the building blocks in this lower component, and tilted out one way or another way, in fact, that's gonna have a knock on effect all the way up to the rest of the chain. So there is an argument that for you to have good posture above, we need to get the building blocks below, sorted out in the first place, which is why it's nice to work through different areas of the body sequentially that way. But you could imagine you can see in this image here that if it's tilted, one way or the other way, then in fact That's gonna have an impact on the low back.

And then it's also going to have an impact on this tissue running all the way up. And this is harder for you guys to see. But this is Tom Meyers anatomy trains is the new science, the new idea about factual lines running up and through the body. And I'm sure we go through that a little bit more later on. But what I'm trying to get the understanding across here, for most of you looking to get rid of any kind of pain really, is to at least start with the fundamentals. start with the basics.

Where is the structure off in your body? And then how can you address that for the long term, so that you can avoid that. So that's what we're going to go through. This is kind of the how, and the why on what you're going to be doing with the exercises over the next little while here. So my story that I mentioned now identified four typical key patterns working with people, multiple people, sometimes up to 150 people a week are starting to see these common patterns and in particular one here that I saw With the low back pain is that somebody's hips were tilted too far forward. So we kind of call that a duck back a little bit, or, and then that's compressing in through the low back, or that somebody's sitting.

And they're rounding out through the low back, which I'm sure many of you, including myself, are familiar with. So this is the pattern that we're going to be looking at. Today to address both of those. I find them actually, the reason why I'm blending the two rather than just doing sitting. There's a lot more people are moving towards standing desks. So it's important that the problem that I'm finding is that people think the solution to low back pain is to not sit anymore because the idea is that sitting is the problem.

Sitting isn't the problem. It's how we're sitting and the prolonged prolonged length of time that we're sitting, which is the issue. So a lot of people are switching to a standing desk to solve that issue. But they're still not addressing the underlining problem with which is a misalignment as far as the structure is concerned. So we If you're at a standing desk where you're standing in a bar chatting with some friends, there's still a chance that you're tilting the pelvis to fall forward this way, compressing in through the low back. So that's why we want to address both of those.

So now if you look at the imagery here, you can see what I'm saying. If we're rounding too far forward, you can see how that's putting a lot of pressure in that lower spine, the lumbar spine and sacral area, and a lot of people could be getting some sacroiliac issues, which could be from sitting and rounding not just from the disc, not from the actual dysfunction itself in that area. So you can see in the other diagram next to that, that we've got the hips tilted forward, and it's nice that you've got these lines there that you can see how that's pointing out that hip tilting forward. Whereas ideally we would be more in line so that the eyes and the ears align with the shoulder, the shoulder is in line with the hip, hips in line with the knee with the ankles are kind of creates this straight line, as you can see, running up and down this image right through here.

Now, that doesn't mean we want to be military style and don't move. But these are these are guidelines for us to follow. Now a lot of this what I'm finding and this is kind of common sense science amongst massage therapists, functional workers and the whole array of lists of kind of holistic health care people that I'm missing off the list there is that the hip flexor, the hip flexor compound, but there is getting excessively tight now it's easy just to blame sitting but the average hunter gatherer used to walk 10 to 50 miles a day, they wouldn't have done a lot of excessive sitting. And what that means is because in here, I'm going to do this at a different color. Things like the psoas muscle which is connecting from point A to point B into the front of the hip there. If we sit for long periods of time, then that's going to get shortened for us and Let me just give you a little bit of example, here a little bit hard to see.

But imagine that the Souers is connecting in through the lumbar spine down into the hip. So we're looking at about this length. Now, if I raise the leg up is if I'm sitting, now we're looking at this link. So let's say that becomes the new length. title. So as we chose recently in the cadaver labs, and it is this is a pretty small little guy, or gal in there.

That's, that's that's causing a lot of this problem. Now is this short, so let's say three years of sitting now it's that short we go to lengthen and we are resisting against this resistance here in through the tape now, I can be okay or say in theory, your leg would sit there but what happens is because the weight is heavier, and what we're doing with the rest of the structure, what it's going to do is it's going to pull tight because the legs going to try and come down. And that's going to be tilt this pelvis forward and compress in through here. So it's important that we start to get this understanding of what's going on with pro long sitting, how it's shortening and tightening muscle tissue. And why it's important for us to start to address the front of that, those of you that might have done my get rid of your neck pain or get rid of your mid upper back pain, we talked a lot about the fact that evolutionary war is hence this picture, were meant to be more in this upright positioning.

And then we know that the tissue is at its natural length. But as we hunched forward, now what we're doing is, which is we're lengthening all this tissue in through the back, and it's getting weak. And then as far as the front is concerned, all the way through the body, we're rounding, and then this is compressing and getting short in through here. So it's important that we start to get this idea across so that you can get an understanding where all of your pain is coming from a more importantly, how actually it's quite easy to address a lot of these issues Shoes, just applying some basic principles. So that's what's going on with the pelvis being tilted forwards and backwards. Typically pain symptoms that you're going to be finding is pain in the upper back.

The reason why I've gotten to the point of saying upper back and middle back, even though we're focused here is because this is the foundation building block, once this goes, the rest of the body tends to follow through so we get this nice rounded C shape through there. So it is good to get a good good understanding what's going on with the low back because of that pain in the center of the low back. So right where the vertebrae is connecting. Let me show you with my little model here. So you can imagine if we're singing let's get let's just go for sitting in the chair for best example, and this is an idea the causes men to be some a little bit more natural curvature in through here. But you could imagine if we're rounding In through the low back, you can see the pressure that that's putting in there on the vertebrae.

So imagine that we're rounding in the low back, you kind of see what that's kind of loading these discs with lots of pressure. Now, yes, they can do that. But that doesn't mean that they should be doing it. Maybe if they can, they shouldn't be doing it for prolonged periods of time. And what you're noticing, especially with these lower guys, is that it's pushing a lot of the force back that way, what's an issue that we get to talk about one of the symptoms here, which is the tingling numbness down the leg, if we're putting a lot of pressure on these discs through here, that's going to push up against the sciatic nerve, which is running down out through the legs in through the piriformis down into the legs here. So if that's getting pushed up through here, you're going to feel that tingling numbness coming down the leg there.

So what we need to be doing is addressing this area if you've got that tingling numbness down in through the back, but also we're looking at this idea of disc degeneration, as all kinds of symptoms This is a pretty key area for a lot of us. So you could imagine that we're overloading in through this way, a lot of the time when we're sitting and rounding into too much with a structure, or we're standing on, we're tilting the pelvis forward this way, which is putting pressure in the opposite direction. So when I say pain in the center, I'm thinking about here for a lot of my clients, but it can also run across. This way, you can feel it run across the top of the pelvis there, as you do that, so it's important that you understand that something like back pain or like man was just a bit of back pain.

But what I'm trying to get across to people and what you can see from my original introductory story is that it starts as a little bit of back pain now, but what is it going to be 10 2030 years from now? Is it a spinal fusion? Does it mean that you don't be able to go out and enjoy your walks? For me a big part? Well, I love my work as you could probably tell, but a big part of what I want to be able to do is enjoy my retirement. I'm never gonna retire but enjoy more leisure time as the kids grow up and all the rest of it.

I don't want to be hunched over in a chair and not being able to move. And this is so important for a lot of you because a lot of you are working in the tech industry like my clients here in downtown San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley. So I'm seeing this time and time again. And what I'm trying to get across to everyone is that if we can start to address these issues, now, we can avoid this kind of prognosis that's going on. And there is a lot that you can do about it now. And that's what we're going to be looking at.

So I find the best way to address this kind of lower back posture. To get better posture is five key areas. One is awareness. Two is better strength. Three is to stretch for ism, a type of massage to release the tension, and then five, which is movement to help bring mobility, we're not these rigid structures that were meant to push and pull like the industrial age. That's done.

Now we're finished with that paradigm. Now we're moving forward to a more fluid body, something that's more flexible and active and dynamic. And that's what you're going to see over the next decade or So really growing that knowledge of science and how we're going to do that. So thank you for this short, rapid introduction here. I hope you enjoy the exercises over this series that you're going to be looking at the low back. Congratulations again, for taking this time to actually work with your body.

It takes a big step, especially as you're a little bit of a black sheep in the fact that you're actually trying to find a solution to your pain, instead of following the masses, which is maybe drugs and surgery, which only really has one particular outcome. So congratulations for you to taking this time and effort in order to try and solve this problem for the long time and not just a quick fix.