A healthy spine is a difficult goal to achieve, especially for people who do a lot of their work in a forced posture. Repetitive movements and a lot of office work where the posture remains unchanged for hours on end are also a problem. So what can we do to avoid pain?

The best cure for back pain is constant exercise. With the right spinal exercises and, more importantly, the right way to do them, we strengthen the muscles around the spine, which take the strain off the entire spinal structure. This means that everyday stresses have less impact on our body, as many loads are carried by the skeleton as well as by well-trained muscles.

• muscle balance,
• adequate mobility,
• regular decompression and self-massage of stressed muscles,
• active breaks during the working day or longer car journeys, and
• enough quality sleep.

• stretching,
• relief and self-massage with rollers and balls, and
• strengthening the deeper muscles of the abdominal corset.

Stretching keeps muscles relaxed and elastic on one side and less tense and stiff on the other. Poor flexibility or shrinkage can directly affect the positions of certain parts of the skeleton, upsetting muscle balance. The forces acting on the joints are not distributed evenly over the articular surface, which usually leads to degenerative processes.

With examples of decompression, you will learn about exercises you can use at home or at work. They are particularly suitable when you have been in a position for a long time that is not optimal for your spine and you are experiencing discomfort in a particular area of your spine. It is recommended to do the exercises daily, unrelated to pain.

Relieving the pressure on the spine is primarily about allowing the vertebrae, ligaments and discs to fall into place. It is important for the discs in particular to be able to “breathe”. This way they can serve their purpose for longer.

Sixpacks, radiators or whatever they are popularly called, do not play a visible role in stabilising the spine. This role is performed by muscles that are hidden from the naked eye. The deep muscles are not always or automatically activated when performing most exercises. Certain conditions must be set for this to happen. Most of the time, these circumstances are different from those for performing normal exercises. Some involve breaking down the balance position or establishing it.

The deep muscles of the trunk can be activated without moving any part of the body. It is important to do this before starting the exercise. Once we become proficient, we can activate them even in such challenging exercises.