I have a client who is an Occupational Therapist by trade. Actually I have several O.T.'s as clients, but that's a separate story 😃.
However, during the last treatment session with this particular client we were discussing what back care strategies should clients adopt during everyday life. Both to help prevent injury and if you are trying to recover from back pain, especially between treatments. As we discussed our favoured approaches I mentioned that I always encouraged our clients to do what I call 'The Kitchen Dance'
"What on earth is that she asked". So I multi-tasked by waltzing around the treatment room whilst explaining the reasons for my 'Cool' or 'Dank' (if you are under the age of 20) moves. (You just get so much more than treatment here at The Reinge Clinic 🤣)
She was so impressed, presumably with my moves,🕺 that she said she would be stealing it!
Well, if that's the case, then I might as well share it with everybody 🤔
To do the Kitchen Dance, you need to do that most important of things that makes the difference between dancing that looks good 🤩 and dancing that embarrasses the kids....you need to move your feet 🤨.
Let me explain:
Although it can mechanically do it, the back, especially the discs, do not like experiencing the forces of rotation and shear at the same time, or in plain english: leaning and twisting in the same movement, especially repeated light and small movements! Now that applies to a healthy back too, so you can imagine how it affects a back that's already suffering.
Therefore I would encourage everybody to do 'the dance' regardless of wether your back hurts or not, helping to prevent a 'bad back' developing in the first place.
So how does The Kitchen Dance prevent rotation and twisting from occurring? Well here's what you do:
Imagine you are standing at your work surface and you need to reach over to get the herb jar that is just out of reach and to your left. DON'T REACH! Not even a little bit. The jar is to the side and therefore to pick it up you will need to rotate as well as lean. Instead, just take a sideways step to the left to put you in line with the jar pick it up and side step back to the right to your working position. Hey, that was a neat little move 🕺 😀.
Oh no! Now you need something from the cupboard behind you, that quarter turn, followed by a lean and reach that you practised so many times in the past, is so yesterday! Let's try a whole 180 degrees to line up with the cupboard and another 180 degrees back again. Two great choices of move here.....do you turn back the way you came or do you keep going a do a full pirouette 💃, your choice 😄.
Now, if you cook like I do, then before you know it these and other groovy step movements are not occasional or sporadic (I like to put things back in their home as I go) they are almost continuous and yes, now I am doing 'The Kitchen Dance' and now you can do it too 😉
Of course you can invent your own dance too👍......The Workshop dance? The Shed dance? The Shopping Dance ?...ok maybe not that one.
So, as well as protecting your back, you never know may even start a new craze 😁!
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