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How using your brain could help a bad back
A RECENT study found that The Alexander Technique, a method of correcting problem posture developed in 1904 by an actor, can help cure chronic back pain. Features writer Hannah Gray found out it's less about stretching and more about thinking.
A RECENT study found that The Alexander Technique, a method of
correcting problem posture developed in 1904 by an actor, can help cure chronic back pain. Features writer Hannah Gray found out it's less about stretching and more about thinking.
IF you've been hunched over your desk for a few hours and your neck and upper back feel tense and sore, chances are the first thing you will do to correct your posture is yank your shoulders back.
Because a common misconception about posture is that the way to improve it is to be straight and taught.
Not so, according to the methods of the Alexander Technique.
Clare Adams, an Alexander Technique teacher from Elton, near Peterborough, explained: "It's a popular misconception that it's only slouching that's bad for you, but too much tension can be just as harmful."
Because of this, the Alexander Technique approaches posture and poise in a different way to how you might imagine.
Clare said: "It's not about a fixed position and a fixed posture and pose, and it's certainly not about trying really hard to be 'correct'. It's actually really much more about your mental approach, and about finding a good balance, and about using the appropriate amount of muscle tone for the job at hand.
"It's about being aware of where your support is coming from and being balanced over that support. So, for example, you've got your sitting bones supporting you when you're sitting on a chair, and you've got your feet when you're standing.
"And then, crucially, it's about allowing your neck to be free and for your back to lengthen and widen."
If the technique's approach strikes you as unusual, then its origins are even more so.
It was not created, as you might expect, by someone looking to cure backache, but an actor who suffered from hoarseness during theatrical performances in the 1890s.
Frederick Matthias Alexander developed the technique out of self-observation and practical experimentation, after discovering he stiffened his body when he went to speak.
Fans of the technique now believe it has a range of benefits for sports people, musicians, public speakers, actors, pregnant women, office workers suffering from RSI, and people with Parkinson's disease.
Clare Adams came to the Alexander Technique through her passion for horse riding – she is now also a riding instructor.
She said: "I'd been riding since I was about nine, but at the time when I first started learning the Alexander Technique I was in my mid-20s and I'd had a few falls. I'd simply started to notice that when I rode I was a bit stiff and a bit crooked and I couldn't ride as well as I wanted to."
She heard about the technique at a horse show, and after she started having lessons, began to really enjoy it.
"I liked the way it's not just a therapy which you have done to you. It's actually something you learn, that you can then use to help yourself and to me that seemed to be a good investment of my money," she said.
Almost as soon as she started learning the technique, Clare began to notice improvements.
"People started to comment on the fact that I looked better and taller. Within four or five months I’d noticed a big improvement in my asthma and generally felt a whole lot better in myself,” she said.
But Clare wanted more.
“I was having to travel quite a long way to have lessons and I thought at that point ‘this is helping me a lot and I want to learn more’ and I started to train to become a teacher.”
Clare’s training was three years full time and she graduated in Christmas 2005. She now teachers people one-to-one at her home.
She of course, already knew of the benefits of the technique before the report was published online in the British Medical Journal, but was still delighted to read the news stories which followed.
She said: “I think it’s great. It’s good to have the technique proven to be of benefit and to have it shown to be able to help people longer-term.”
n Lessons with Clare cost 26 for three-quarters of an hour. Clare generally encourages her students to have six to eight lessons to begin with to see how they feel about the technique. For more information, call 01832 280345.
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