Firstly Qigong, which is sometimes written Qi Gong is pronounced (more or less) “chee kung”.
It originates from traditional Chinese medicine and involves the use of different breathing patterns with various physical postures and motions of the body.
Qi or chi refers to the energy flows that occur both within the human body and in the external world.
Qigong asserts that the body’s “energy field” is generated and maintained by the natural respiration of the body; gong means work applied to a discipline or the resultant level of technique. Qigong together means “breath work” or the practice of managing one’s breathing in order to achieve and maintain good health.
Qigong offers benefits for both health maintenance and health restoration i.e. it can keep you healthy if you already are, or help you get healthy if you’re currently not. This applies to back health and pain also.
Personally I susbcribe to the “whatever works” school of health maintenance.
nb. If you are interested in natural therapies try the Better Back System.
Qigong also has some esoteric or “metaphysical” aspects, but what is important is “does the practice do something useful for you”.
If the answer is yes, well obviously use it, if not try something else.
Qigong Exercise - Shoulder & Neck Stretch
If you get stiff in the shoulder and neck region this exercise is simple to do and is likely to make it better.
The great thing about this exercise is its simple and you can do it anywhere at any time for as long as you want.
Preparation:
1. Stand with your feet together and you back and neck straight.
2. Let your arms hang by your sides, palms facing your body.
3. Raise your arms to about a 45 degree angle (i.e. half way betwen hanging at your sides and poiting straight out at shoulder level), keeping them straight with your elbows locked.
4. Flex your wrists and raise your palms as far as they can go keeping the palms facing more-or-less down and your arms straight and your elbows locked.
Depending upon how flexible your wrists are, your palms may go as far as forming a 90 degree angle with your forearms. More commonly the angle will be greater than 90 degrees (it started off at 180 degrees with your palms hanging by your side).
The Movement
Basically the movement is like shrugging your shoulders. Move your shoulders up and down whilst keeping your arms straight elbows locked and palms raised upwards.
After you have done a few you will probably start to feel a hot and/or stiff feeling in your neck and shoulder area. This is fine, keep going remembering to keep your arns straight and palms bent.
Some people enjoy doing them to music. Something with a steady beat works well.
Keeping the correct posture and movement is the most important thing.
How many should you do?
Depends how fit you are and how much time you have. 20, 50, 100, 500 are all reasonable numbers for different people.
Once you get past a hundred or so you will probably start to sweat noticeably.
As always use your common sense. If you’re not particularly fit and decide you want to do 250, but feel like you’re going to die at any moment after 50 or so, its probably a good idea to stop!
Sciatica Exercise Video
You can also try this yoga exercise to help with back pain.
Questions & Answers on Sciatica & Back Pain
This is the where you can get your questions about sciatica and back pain answered. View the questions and answers here. Just leave your question as a comment using the Comments link below and we'll respond with our suggestions.
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