9781592400454

From a noted pioneer in sports medicine comes a breakthrough regimen for stopping back pain once and for all—without surgery.Eighty-percent of Americans suffer some form of low-back pain—usually due to a herniated disk—but long-term relief is rarely achieved.As a physician specializing in treating athletes, Dr. Vijay Vad has spent years researching how to cure back pain using medical yoga and Pilates. Profiled in The Wall Street Journal, his program requires just fifteen minutes a day for eight weeks to restore flexibility and prevent future injuries.Offering a proven alternative to invasive surgery, Dr. Vad’s Back Rxprovides the best of mind/body medicine by giving readers three step-by-step exercise series, demonstrated in 130 precise photographs, for implementing his popular program at home. Even readers with severely limited mobility will rejoice in Dr. Vad’s gentle introductory workout. Progressing through his self-paced program, they will discover a new range of exercises, breathing techniques, and tips for self-massage. For those who want to go even further and use this program for more than the treatment of a single injury, an advanced workout is included that puts readers on the road to peak performance.The perfect combination of modern medicine, Pilates innovations, and ancient yoga postures, Back Rxbuilds important new fundamentals for lifelong freedom from pain.

A lifelong yoga practitioner, Vijay Vad, M.D., is a sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. He also serves as the official back-care advisor for the Professional Golfers Association tour and two major tennis tours.

Hilary Hinzmann is a freelance editor whose projects include Use What You-'ve Got by high-profile New York City realtor Barbara Corcoran.

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: The Back Rx Way to a Healthy, Pain-Free Back

xi

What to Do If You're in Pain Right Now

xvii

PART ONE

How Your Back Works

3

(6)

Why Your Back Hurts

9

(6)

The Four Stages of Low Back Pain Care and Recovery

15

(10)

Flexibility, Strength, and Endurance: the Three Keys to Good Balance and Posture

25

(10)

Power Tips for Healthy Backs

35

(16)

Resuming Activity after a Low Back Injury

51

(6)

PART TWO: Back Rx Series A, B, and C

Introduction: Doing the Back Rx Exercises

57

(6)

Return to Movement: Back Rx Series A

63

(32)

Resuming Full Activity: Back Rx Series B

95

(24)

Into the Fast Lane: Back Rx Series C

119

(24)

PART THREE

Other Caregivers

143

(6)

State-of-the-Art Treatments and the Future of Low Back Care

149

(7)

Appendix: Resources on the Web

156

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Introduction: The Back Rx Way to a Healthy, Pain-Free Back If you?re reading this book, you?re probably all too familiar with the pain of a low back injury. A strained muscle in the low back can make you gasp with pain at the slightest movement. The herniation of a spinal disk, the most troublesome cause of severe low back pain, can virtually cripple you. Worst of all, in the aftermath of a low back injury, pain may take up permanent residence almost anywhere in the back or legs, including sites far removed from the point of injury.If you?re hurting now, skip ahead to page xvii for some simple ways to ease the pain. Come back to read these pages when you?re feeling better. In order to make a full and lasting recovery from low back pain, you must first understand what causes it. In North America, four out of five people will suffer a serious episode of low back pain at some point in their lives. Only the common cold causes more lost work days than low back pain for adults under forty-five years of age. Low back injuries usually heal within weeks, a testament to the back?s inherent strength and resilience. But long-term healing is notoriously difficult to achieve. One episode of low back pain generally leads to another. Four out of five people will suffer a recurrence within one year, and then face a 70?80% risk of further recurrences. The right treatment can make all the difference between healing completely, building a more injury-resistant and resilient back in the process, and falling into a downward spiral of recurrent injury that defeats every measure of conventional and alternative care and leads to failed back syndrome, long-term dependency on pain medication, and even surgery. That downward spiral traps far too many low back pain sufferers. I?ve had to heal my own low back pain. So I write this book both as a physician and as a fellow sufferer. The Back Rx program enabled me to beat my low back pain for good. And it has helped thousands of patients I see in my sports medicine practice and research at the Hospital for Special Surgery, an affiliate of Cornell University Medical Center in New York, where I also serve on the faculty as a professor. Back Rx achieves these results by blending carefully selected elements of rehabilitation, yoga, and Pilates with a central focus on breath control. It is one of the few exercise programs for the low back to be shown effective in controlled clinical trials. In an ongoing study, my research colleagues and I are monitoring the progress of two groups of low back patients who receive the same medical care and take the same pain medication, except that one group does the Back Rx program for fifteen minutes three times a week. At the end of the first year, the group doing Back Rx had a 70% success/cure rate (as measured by a more than 50% reduction in low back pain), whereas the other group had only a 33% success/cure rate. The group doing Back Rx also needed much less pain medication and had significantly less recurrence of back pain than the other group. Building on the work of many other low back pain researchers and clinicians at the Hospital for Special Surgery and elsewhere, my research and clinical practice have demonstrated that an exercise program like Back Rx can be the key to healing low back pain without surgery or long-term dependence on medication. My patients come from every walk of life, including professional sports, which allows me to see the full range of low back problems. Professional athletes are especially interesting patients in this regard. Understanding why even highly conditioned individuals are susceptible to low back pain provides great insight into the common denominators of this baffling medical condition and how best to address them. I see professional athletes as private patients and in my role as a consulting physician for the ATP tennis tour and the PGA golf tour. My involveme

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Back Rx : A Fifteen-Minute-a-Day Yoga-and Pilates-Based Program to End Low Back Pain Forever

Back Rx : A Fifteen-Minute-a-Day Yoga-and Pilates-Based Program to End Low Back Pain Forever

1592400450

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

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