by Charles Herbert | Apr 14, 2015 | Blog, Media |
Back pain: Pay attention to your posture and core strength Core strength and stability is concerned with all the muscles that are found in, or attached to, the torso. Of course this includes the abdominals, but also involves muscles of the lower back, hips, pelvic floor and diaphragm. The relationship of these muscles and how they work together is key to maintaining body stability. Weakness in these muscles causes poor posture and can lead to pain in the back, shoulders, hips or even lower limbs. Executing 100 sit-ups a day won’t give you a solid core, but keeping all these muscles in good shape will help protect from injury during everyday movements, lifting or playing sports. Training your core muscles will also help you to have a smaller waist and a flatter stomach and may also mean the difference between requiring or avoiding surgery. Weekend asked three health and medical experts for their opinion on the importance of core strength. All agreed that in terms of preventing injury and pain, a sedentary lifestyle and poor posture have a lot to answer for. Matt Poulter, co-director at The Chiropractic Centre, Clifton “Core stability has, in recent times, become a buzz word and, as such, it’s easy to think that strengthening it is a cure-all for everything. In my experience, however, lifestyle and the type of job you do are huge factors influencing health, wellbeing and posture. A less active lifestyle can lead to a weak or imbalanced core, but it also reduces joint flexibility and muscle strength. “These problems can build up undetected over a period of years and then,...
by Charles Herbert | Mar 27, 2015 | Media |
Back pain: why we should all be taking more care to stand tall According to the charity Back Care, back pain is the second most common cause of absence from work in Britain. Every year more than four million working days are lost as a result of back pain and, on average, an employee with back pain takes 17 days off to recover from an episode. Chances are you won’t know there’s a problem until it manifests in pain, at which point you may head to a GP, or perhaps a physiotherapist or a chiropractor. Bristol chiropractor Charles Herbert, who’s based in Clifton with business partner Matt Poulter, is aiming to turn this scenario on its head. On the basis that prevention is better than cure, he and Matt want to start visiting Bristol offices to talk to workers about posture and the best way to set up a desk environment and to give general advice about good spine maintenance. “It’s an ambition we have to get Bristol healthy,” says Charles. “We are the Green Capital of Europe and a ‘healthy’ city, so why not be the healthiest individuals as well? “Going into offices is something we’re going to roll out, but we have big plans. It’s something new we haven’t done before in this way – and it’s a case of putting it into a package that companies can offer their employees to see what can be done to make people have fewer days off work. “I’d say the majority of our patients sit in an office. The most common postural problem for office workers is the head lolling forward....
