Yoga for a healthy lower back : a practical guide to developing strength and relieving pain

558 Pages·2013·5.29 MB·English

by  Owen

“This is a clear, insightful program for lower back health, rooted in classical
yoga and rich in Western and Eastern wisdom. The authors offer fresh and
accessible yoga practices that are sure to inspire a lasting, healing recovery
from pain in the lower back. I love this book!”
—Patricia Walden, author of The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health
“This wise and practical book is full of helpful advice on relieving lower
back pain. It offers a menu of therapeutic yoga practices to fit your needs.
Recommended for novices and seasoned practitioners alike.”
—Timothy McCall, MD, author of Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic
Prescription for Health and Healing
“Uniquely practical and informative, Owen and Rossi effortlessly integrate
Western movement science with yogic wisdom. Highly recommended!”
—Chip Hartranft, PT, author of The Yoga-Sutra of Patañjali
ABOUT THE BOOK
The sacrum, or lower back, is an incredibly powerful part of the human
anatomy. It’s what enables you to stand upright and tall, it unites your
upper and lower body, it roots you to the earth—and it is one of the most
common areas where people experience chronic pain and discomfort. Yoga
practice can have a transformative effect on lower back problems: it allows
the body to gain the range of movement and flexibility that short-circuits
the mind’s perception of limitation and pain. Yoga for a Healthy Lower
Back will help you understand lower back pain and heal it through gentle
exercises that can be done even by those with no previous yoga experience.
Liz Owen describes the anatomy of the sacrum and the region around it,
including the hips and lumbar spine, and illuminates both the Western and
Eastern approaches to understanding back pain. She then provides simple,
easy-to-learn sequences of yoga poses for general sacrum health and then
for specific issues or conditions such as pregnancy, fibromyalgia, and
arthritis, among others.
LIZ OWEN has practiced yoga for twenty-five years and has taught it since
1990, focusing on alignment-based yoga practice as a tool for well-being
and healthy living. She has conducted classes and workshops on healthy
back care and healing back pain through yoga every week for the past ten
years. She has published numerous articles on yoga on Beliefnet.com. She
is coauthor of an NIH-funded study at Boston University Medical Center,
which focuses on yoga as a healing modality for depression. She teaches
throughout New England and at yoga conferences elsewhere.
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This book is not intended to substitute for medical advice or treatment.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2013 by Liz Owen and Holly Lebowitz Rossi Cover photos by Robert Zinck Photos: © Robert Zinck
Illustrations: © Ann Boyajian Chakra Symbols: (Illustration 16) © Viktoriia Protsak—Fotolia.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Owen, Liz.
Yoga for a healthy lower back: a practical guide to developing strength and relieving pain / Liz Owen,
Holly Lebowitz Rossi.
pages cm
eISBN 978-0-83482902-2
ISBN 978-1-61180-049-4 (pbk.) 1. Backache—Popular works. 2. Backache—Alternative treatment.
3. Yoga. I. Rossi, Holly Lebowitz. II. Title.
RD771.B217O94 2013
613.7' 046—dc 23
2013001181
For Ryah, mija bonita, and Peter Freeth Belford. Los amo más de lo que la
lengua pueda decir. —L.O.
For Rob and Ben, with quiet prayers of thanks for the sunlight each time I see
your faces. —H.L.R.
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. The Journey into Wellness
2. Your Hips
3. Your Sacrum
4. Your Lumbar Spine
5. Your Abdominal Core
6. Your Middle Back, Upper Back, and Neck
7. Maintaining a Healthy Lower Back
8. Practices for Specific Lower Back Conditions and Diagnoses
Sacral Sprain
Referred Sacral Pain
Sacral Joint Dysfunction
Lordosis, Lumbar Muscular Pain, and Strain
Herniated Disc and Pinched Nerve
Arthritis, Spinal Stenosis, and Spondylolisthesis
Fibromyalgia
Pregnancy
Notes
Glossary of Sanskrit Terms
Recommended Reading for Lower Back Health
List of Yoga Poses by Chapter
E-mail Sign-Up
Acknowledgments
Gratitude can be such a powerful thing to feel but such a difficult a thing to
express. Knowing that, we can only attempt to acknowledge, with grateful
hearts, the broad community of mentors, experts, guides, resources, and friends
who have been part of the process of creating this book.
Let’s start at the beginning, when Steve Dyer designed our proposal with great
skill and care. Raea Zani created a piece of art for the proposal that showed the
sacrum in all its grace and glory. Susan Piver is not only an inspiring colleague
and gifted writer but she was also kind enough to make our introductions at
Shambhala, where Dave O’Neal took us in and put our project in the helpful,
encouraging hands of Beth Frankl and Ben Gleason, who have guided us with
great kindness and intelligence throughout this process.
The images you see throughout this book are the result of a great deal of work,
planning, time, and, most important, artistry. Robert Zinck’s photographic skills,
equipment expertise, and time commitment—not to mention his yoga modeling
—were invaluable. Thanks are due also to Shelley Zatsky for her photo-editing
help that got us across the finish line. Christiana Melton not only modeled the
yoga poses in this book with stunning beauty, she and her husband, Rex, allowed
their home to be transformed into a photo studio on several occasions. We are
also grateful to Chip Hartranft, of The Arlington Center, not only for founding
the yoga studio where our personal and professional relationship was born but
also for allowing us to shoot some of the book’s photographs there. Finally, in
the visual arts department, Ashley Lorenz and the Lilla Rogers Studio connected
us with the gifted Ann Boyajian, whose exquisite anatomical illustrations have
illuminated our text so beautifully.
Our book is greatly enriched by the experts we were fortunate enough to be
able to consult for feedback and reactions. We are especially grateful to Jonathan
Beasley of Harvard Divinity School for helping us find a Sanskrit consultant,
and to Benjamin Williams for answering that call with such passion, enthusiasm,
and intelligence. Chris C. Streeter, M.D., of Boston University School of
Medicine, was so generous with her time and expertise in advising us on
anatomy and Western medical concepts. We are also indebted to authors whose
work has fueled and deepened ours, especially B.K.S. Iyengar, Edwin F. Bryant,
Harish Johari, Vasant L. Lad and Anisha Durve, Thomas W. Myers, and Judith
Hanson Lasater. Finally, a special OM to Georg Feuerstein, whose work was so
valuable to us, and who passed away while we were working on this book.
Finally, some personal thanks from each of us.
From Holly: Thanks to Keith Puri of ChiroCare Associates for opening his
bookshelf to us and for, together with Robert Kum, caring about my lower back
all these years. Thanks are also due to Jill Feldman for her help with our
contracts at the front end of this project. And gratitude of course to my family,
especially Mom for being the first person to teach me about good posture; Dad
for being my consigliere in all things; and my husband, Rob, and son, Ben, for
keeping me upright in every sense of the word. This family list would not be
complete without a note of thanks to my Gaga, Elaine Bassler Mardus, who
sparked in me the curiosity and love of learning that inspired me to be a writer.
Innumerable other friends and family members have offered their support,
encouragement, and help in ways that are too great to list here. And finally, the
most obvious but important thanks of all—to Liz Owen, an exceptional teacher
and an exceptional person. My lower back has been transformed by my years in
your class, and I’m so grateful that others will now get to learn from you, and
from your yoga, as I have. I’m proud to stand beside you on this project.
From Liz: My first words of gratitude are to Holly Lebowitz Rossi, without
whom this book would not have happened. The experience of collaborating with
you, with your superb writing and editing expertise and your deep love and
understanding of spirituality, religion, and yoga, is a true gift to me. I am so
appreciative of your sure-footedness and graceful countenance, especially giving
feedback on the first drafts. The going could have gotten rough, yet in your
hands it was illuminative and joyful! From the day you said, “Let’s write a book
together,” to the present, your congeniality has made our work flow more
smoothly than I ever thought possible. I appreciate you so much.
To my longtime teacher and mentor, Patricia Walden, my heart is full of
gratitude for your teachings, your insight, and your prakasha. There are so many
yogis, alternative-and complementary-medicine practitioners, and others whose
wisdom has infused my path with insight and inspiration through the years.
Some of them are B.K.S. Iyengar, Karin Stephen, Zoe Stewart, Rod Stryker,
Erich Schiffman, Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Dr. Ben E. Benjamin, Thich Nhat
Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, T.K.S. Desikachar, Paul Muller-Ortega, Ramanand Patel,
Chip Hartranft, Richard Freeman, and Kit Laughlin. One thousand eight
namastes to each of you.