You are more upright, you feel more centred and your back will feel like it is better
aligned. After an hour or so, check your posture again. You will find yourself back to
your familiar “hunched over” posture that is bad for your back. It takes dedication to
strengthen your abdominal and back muscles to the point where you sit and walk with
better posture.
- Stretching exercises are useful in osteoarthritis
The best treatment to help manage symptoms from osteoarthritis is an active exercise
program that lays emphasis on stretching. Stretching the hip muscles, back joints and
hamstrings on a daily basis helps maintain the motion of the spine. Many patients will
feel better in an active yoga or pilates program. Keeping the joints mobile will help them
stay healthy.
- Keep it going
If you have not been exercising regularly then it is common to feel more pain
immediately after exercising and especially the next day. This is the beginning of a long
term process. Conditioning takes time. It is most important to exercise ONLY till you are
comfortably tired and do not experience much pain. Although only 5 repetitions are
advised for most of the exercises recommended in this book, you can stop at two or
three and gradually increase over a week to 5. Do not stop exercising just because there
is no time or you feel tired for some other reason. The order of exercises given in this
book starts from the easiest and works its way up to slightly more strenuous ones. They
have been chosen keeping YOU in mind. There are many more stretching and
strengthening exercises that have been omitted as they may be difficult for you and I do
not want you to get frustrated and chuck this book away altogether. Even if you do
only the exercises listed in this book and adhere to the preventive
measures, you will obtain permanent relief from back pain.