21-Day Happy Back Challenge
Relieve Back Pain, Stabilize Your Core & Unlock Your Shoulders in Just 15-Min Daily…
If you suffer from lower back pain, locked-up shoulders, and a weak core, there’s a very good chance I can help you. I’d like to invite you to join my 21-Day Happy Back Challenge designed for all levels, including beginners.
Happy Back Benefits
Reduced Pain
Movement is medicine but you need to listen to your body’s pain signals, adjust, adapt and modify along the way. During this program, you’ll dramatically increase your proprioception (external awareness) and interoception (internal awareness).
Improved Posture
Laptop lifestyle has left many of us with hunched shoulders and a swooping lower back. In this challenge, we’ll free up stuck areas and use balancing practices to create alignment head-to-toe. Better posture = better movement patterns = happy back.
Renewed Joy for Sports
Most students tell me their best memories are outdoors: walking, hiking, cycling or swimming. For some people, it’s a yoga classes or a gym workout. Whatever your favorite activities are, when your spine is happy, it’s pure joy.
Strengthened Muscles
Did you know most people lose 1 lbs of muscle per year as they age? During this challenge, we’ll work to reverse that by developing deep core stabilizers for your spinal column and posterior chain.
Boosted Flexibility
You should be able to touch the floor in a forward bend, interlace your hands behind your back with straight arms, and twist a full 180-degrees at any time, day-or-night, without pain. Most of us have lost some of this basic range of motion, but the good news is that you can get it back.
Improved Quality of Life
I realized that health may not be the top priority for everyone, but when basic movements cause pain and discomfort, nothing is more important than correcting the problem. Once you make spinal hygiene part of your routine; your overall quality of life improves in everything from your attitude to your love life.
Why Does Your Back Hurt?
In 2003, I hurt my back so badly I couldn’t get out of bed. The doctor gave me muscle relaxants and pain killers and said it would take 5 days to recover. He was wrong. It took nearly six months, and along the way, I began what has now become an obsessive investigation in to back care.
Why do 80% of people have a major back pain issue at some point in their lives? Why did I have such a big problem even as a yoga teacher?
And why are you having problems now?
Most back pain occurs due to (1) lack of use (weakness / stiffness), (2) overuse (pushing too hard) or most commonly, a combination of both. Often your strength isn’t what is used to be, and then you lift a piano, run a 10K without training, or carry a child with an unusual grip on the way to the car – and then wham!
The Real Risk of Chronic Pain
You already know back pain affects your quality of life; but even more concerning is the domino effect it can have where the clock of aging spines five years forward in a matter of months. Here’s what I’ve seen happen…
You hurt your back. You stop exercising. You gain a little weight, lose a little muscle, and start using pain killers regularly. What started as a mild disc herniation can quickly domino into a weight problem, hormone imbalances, sleep issues, and mental health challenges.
The cruel joke here is the #1 tool you have to heal your spine is exactly what you’ve stopped doing – moving! Movement is medicine, remember?
As a studio owner, I’ve seen this pattern play out dozens of times even with young and otherwise healthy people. You can go from a fun and active lifestyle to couch-bound Netflix life almost overnight, and the risk are much bigger than are initially obvious.
The “3 Legs” of Spinal Health
Your spine is a complicated collection of tissues, so the root causes of your back pain can be complicated too. Sometimes your doctor will tell you one thing, a chiropractor tells you something else, and then you get an MRI and it basically show nothing.
But your spine clearly isn’t happy! It can be very frustrating, so I always encourage student so get as much medical support as they can, and to simultaneously take full responsibility for their own body because no doctor (or yoga teacher!) can feel what you’re feeling and know what is working. It must be something you discover on your own with help. How do you start that process? Of personal responsibility?
Firstly, always work with a trusted health care professional. If you don’t like your provider, get a second opinion, but don’t go at this alone. Secondly, I’d recommend you apply the YOGABODY 3-legged protocol spinal health: strength, flexibility, balance.
But what if I only need to work on flexibility? Or what if I’m flexible but just need strength or muscle balance? The body works as a holistic system, so the best practice is to work on all three pillars simultaneously for a happy back. Always, we’ll listen to your body. Always, we’ll adjust, adapt and modify as we go.
My Stiff Back Story
In my first yoga class ever (hot yoga), we started with a Half Moon Pose. This is where you extend your arms above your head and interlace your fingers. Just this simple movement, arms straight up above my head, already gave me back pain!
That’s how stiff I was.
We did another pose called Camel. It was brutal. I’d literally black out and see stars as I came up for air. I’d seen other students do Cobra pose and Wheel pose variations, but those were completely out of reach for me.
My biggest problems were stiffness and imbalances (my right side was way stronger and tighter than the left). I had a decent amount of strength from the gym, but my mobility and stability were non-existent.
So what did I do? Like I’d done so many times in yoga, I began researching, taking classes with different teachers, and asking good questions. Here’s what I learned.
- Backbends involve opening the front of your body. This sounds obvious now, but I’d never thought of it before.
- A happy back requires pelvic rotation, lumbar curve, thoracic curve, and retraction of the shoulder blades (I was just always trying to jam my lower back).
- The fear response can be huge after an injury—we often avoid anything that might trigger pain—so a big part of healing, is balancing your nervous system and creating a safe feeling for opening.
- The solution to a healthy, strong and mobile spine must include strength, flexibility and balance—I was only working on flexibility and that was a mistake
My 21-Day Challenge to You
My challenge to you is very simple: join me for 15 minutes a day, every day, for 21 days. Together, we’ll create a happy back. During our live sessions, we’ll focus on strength, flexibility, and balance (stabilizing) poses. I’ll answer all your questions personally, you’ll meet people from around the world, and most importantly, you’ll take full control over your spinal health and healing journey.
Join me live if you can, if not, don’t worry, I’ll post the replay of that day’s exercises immediately after I finish.
My teaching calendar is extremely busy, and since I spend 80% of my time working with future teachers, I don’t have much time life for my drop-in classes like the old days.
Courses like this 21-day challenge allow me to open classes to all students, all levels, and I love it. It’s the next best thing to being right next to me on the mat. To date, over 63,000 students have joined these courses (so clearly, it’s working!).
This challenge is unlike any other video course you might have done. You’ll have direct access to me, modifications for all levels and all body types, and rather than chasing some proverbial “perfect pose” our sole mission is to create a happy back. This is unedited, unscripted, 100 percent raw and real. I’m excited. Are you?
