Do you have chronic lower back pain? Does it get worse if you drive a lot? Or if you spend
all day at the office? Maybe you've tried yoga or chiropractic care, stretching exercises, and it
gets a little bit better but then it comes back, it's a little bit better and then comes back. If
so, this video is for you. Hey, my name is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a teacher trainer. I had a
really bad repetitive stress, lower back injury, in my late twenties. It was a Tuesday morning,
I woke up, couldn't get out of bed. I managed to get to the emergency room in the afternoon
and the doctor did an x-ray, looked at the scan, couldn't find anything. He gave me muscle
relaxants and painkillers and sent me home. He told me actually in five days I would be better.
I'm a yoga teacher, I need to use my body to work, so five days didn't sound that bad. Turns out it
took about six months and I learned a bunch of things along the way. Here's what I learned. The
first thing is most lower back pain, like mine, is subclinical, meaning they look at the scan,
you talk to a doctor, they can't really figure out exactly what's going on. But that doesn't make
any difference if you're in a bunch of pain. Your quality of life is in the toilet. Number two what
I found is almost everybody feels like they have some solution - an adjustment, a pill, a magic
stretch. And the reality is, for most people, the solution is not one thing but a combination of
things, it's a holistic approach. The third thing I learned, this is probably the most
important thing, is healing is usually a journey and you have to take full responsibility for that.
I wish you could pay a manual therapist, a massage therapist, to fix you. But in almost all cases you
need to take full responsibility for your healing journey. In this video I'd like to share with
you my four-pronged approach to healing using the Yoga Trapeze. We'll look at strength, flexibility,
balance, and traction. Now, if you don't own a Yoga Trapeze you can get one at yogabody.com.
If you don't want to do that, please check my channel. I have tons of free mat-based videos
for spinal care, don't let that stop you. A quick disclaimer here: if you have a major back problem,
if you can't get up and down from the ground, if you are feeling nauseous,
please go see a doctor. This video is for educational purposes only.
As usual there's a pdf down below if you'd like to download a pose chart. There are also time
stamps if you'd like to skip forward in the practice. Let's jump into our poses.
Let me guide you through this mini flow specifically for strength,
balance, flexibility, and traction on the Yoga Trapeze. If you feel any lower back,
any spinal twinges, pain, please back off. Pain is a red light. You need to modify or skip the pose.
Let's start off with both a strength and a traction pose, which is just called a passive
hang. Standing in front of my trapeze, I'll step my feet as wide as my hips. I'll reach
up and grab the high handles with a parallel grip, that's where my knuckles face each other.
Bending your knees, lifting up on your tip toes as you straighten your arms. I'd like you to hang
from your arms, with as much weight as you feel comfortable. What I mean by that is use your legs
more or less. You could even potentially lift your legs up, but I don't want you to overexert
yourself. You find a comfortable place for you. You can always always throttle the intensity
by using your legs more. From here I'd like you to gently push forward, gently roll back,
gently lengthen forward, and gently back. We're working on our full shoulder flexion.
This is also helpful for our thoracic spine, our mid and upper back, and our neck as well.
And, of course, by hanging here I'm helping to create more length in my whole spinal column.
Let's lift all the way up, release your hands and shake it out. Let's try one more passive hang and
then we'll move into some more poses. Step your feet as wide as your hips or a little wider, reach
up and grab the high handles with a parallel grip, and let's squat down, down, down, down, down.
This time increase the intensity just a little bit more. We're still passively hanging here,
but maybe you use your legs a little bit less. Let's push forward, let's roll backwards,
let's push forward, let's roll backwards. If you feel comfortable maybe make a small
clockwise circle. If you feel comfortable maybe make a small counterclockwise circle and all the
way up to stand. Release your hands and shake it out. The next pose we'll do is working on our
pull motion strength. This is really important for stabilizing our shoulders, our upper back,
and our neck specifically. But we'll take a very, very, gentle approach. I'd like you to step behind
your trapeze. We're in position one, so the rig is in one line with our body. I'll again have my feet
about as wide as my hips, grab the high handles with a parallel grip, and then I'll lean back like
a board, like a plank, and straighten my arms and pause here. With your eyes gaze up at the ceiling
and pull your elbows in and down, your heart up, and then lower back down. Pull your heart up
and lower back down. Your legs stay straight, pull your heart up, that's three, and lower back down.
Pull your heart up, that's four, and lower back down. Pull your heart up,
and then lower back down. Bend your knees, release your hands, and shake it out. These are what we
might call corrective exercises. We're working on re-establishing strength, flexibility, balance,
in our spine. They're gentle by nature. Don't make the mistake of going too far, too fast. Remember,
pain is the mitigating factor here. If you feel it, you back off or modify. Let's do another set
of these rows. We're in position one behind our rig, our feet about as wide as our hips. Grab
your high handles with a parallel grip, straighten your arms as you lean back, eyes up towards the
ceiling, pull your heart up, and lower back, keep your elbows in and down. Pull your heart up and
lower back for two. Pull your heart up, lower back for three. Pull your heart up, lower back
for four. Pull your heart up and lower back for five. Bend your knees all the way up to stand
and shake it out. Very often we skip grip pull motion poses, which are very important
for our upper back, stabilization of our scapula, thoracic spine, and our neck as well. Let's drop
down to the floor, take a seated position, with the main sling just behind your head.
Extend your legs out in front of you with your feet a little bit wider than your hips.
Grab on to these long handles with what we call a spread fingers grip, so I'll spread my fingers
really wide. And then lengthen, lengthen, lengthen forward with your arms, and drop your head. Now if
you feel any discomfort in your lower back, any pinching, compression at all, I'd like you to
bend your knees up towards your chest. If it's too much to drop your head, keep your neck long with
your ears in line with your arms. If and when it's comfortable, however, you could straighten your
legs. If and when it's comfortable, you could drop your head. Breathe in and out through your nose.
We're working on lengthening the flexibility of our posterior chain, specifically our hamstrings,
glute groups, but also into our QL and erector spinae muscles. The cool thing about doing this on
the Yoga Trapeze is because my hands are elevated, for most of us we might need to bend our knees,
but we're able to keep our spine long and avoid compression in our lower back while we're doing
this practice. Good. Lift all the way back up, stay right where you are, bend your knees
so your feet are still a little bit wider than your hips, lie down on your back here.
Reach up and grab the low handles with a parallel grip, so my knuckles are facing each other.
We'll do a glute bridge here. Watch me first, then we'll do it together. With the glute bridge I lift
my hips up, so my body's in a diagonal line. I'll pull down on the handles, with my elbows squeezing
in to puff my chest. But the main action I'm looking for is to engage my glutes and maybe your
hamstrings, but mostly your glutes. We're working on stabilizing the back side of your pelvis,
around your sacrum. Let's try together. Feet are planted, grab those long handles, parallel grip,
push down into the ground, not so high with your hips, but really heavy into the heels.
Squeeze your elbows in, five, your glutes should be strong and tight, four, three,
two, one. Slowly lower down. Good. Stay right here. If you feel any compression in your lower
back don't feel like you need to go up so high with your hips. Try again. Grab those handles
with a parallel grip, press your heels down, lift your hips up, up, up, up, squeeze your elbows in,
pull down on those handles. Press into your heels five, four, three, two, one. Slowly lower
down, take a break here. We'll do one more set of this glute bridge pose. Grab the low
handles with a parallel grip. Press your heels down, lift your hips up. Here we are, five, four,
three, two, and one. Lower down and let's make our way up to a seated position. This next pose is a
great one for our shoulders, our thoracic spine, and our neck. Let's start off in position one,
with our knees about as wide as our mat, and our big toes touching back behind us. Take a look,
knees as wide as your mat, big toes touch back behind you. And then sit back onto your heels.
Take the long handles with a spread fingers grip, stretch your arms out as far as they go, drop your
head, and breathe here. Heavy head, spread fingers grip, slow and steady breath through your nose.
Good. Now slowly make your way all the way back up to sit. Release your arms and shake
it out. So we've worked on a little bit of traction, some strength, some flexibility,
let's now take a look at a balancing pose. This is both for literal balance but also balancing
our right and left side, the front and back side of our body. This pose is called the dancer's
pose. We'll stand in front of the trapeze and I'll start by turning to look at the trapeze. I'll hook
my left ankle over the main sling, I'll reach up and grab the handles for balance,
and then I'll hop, hop my foot to the center of the mat, spread fingers grip on those high
handles, I'll kick my leg back, my ears and arms stay in one line. Some of you will go more
forward, some of you will go more backwards, doesn't really matter. Keep your standing leg
more or less perpendicular, so straight up and down from the ground. We'll hold here, five,
four, three, two, one. Slowly release, hold on to something while you release your foot
so you don't trip yourself. Turn around, let's do the other side. I'll hook my right ankle
again, I'll grab those high handles, reach around and hop, hop, hop my foot to the center of the
mat. From here, spread fingers, shoot your leg back, ears and arms in one line, as you lengthen,
extend, and work on balancing out our body here. Five, four, three, two,
and one. All the way back up, release your leg. For this next pose we'll get into the trapeze
and we'll do some traction. Let's slide our black clips up, let's open up our main sling. Butterfly
your hands behind your back, grab the edge of the main sling, and I'll push up to find my seat here.
No rocking, no swinging, just very, very simple. To find your seat, we slide our black clips down,
bicycle your legs, take your thumbs back behind you, and you can wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
The main sling fabric down lower makes it easier. Then from here I'll grab the long straps
and V my legs wide, wide apart. Look at your toes, arms are straight, legs are straight, and then
double cross your legs just on the main sling and bend your knees a lot. Good. Release down,
grab your elbows above your head, and breathe here. This pose is called
Traction Jackson and it naturally creates just a teeny tiny bit more space between your vertebrae.
Good. Grab the long straps, look up at your toes,
spread your legs wide apart in a v-shape, and then walk your hands up the straps,
wrap your arms around the rig, put your forehead on your forearms, and take a break.
I hope you found that video helpful. If you'd like more science-based yoga videos,
please hit subscribe down below. I try to answer all my comments,
so if you have questions or need more information about the Yoga Trapeze, or anything we've covered,
please feel free to drop a note down below. And remember that PDF guide is in the description.
If you'd like to learn more about the Yoga Trapeze training programs,
classes and videos that we have available, you can find those at yogabody.com.