Do you have back pain? Have you ever heard of traction therapy for pain relief? My name is
Lucas, I'm a yoga teacher and a teacher trainer and I've been working with people who have back
pain pretty much every day for the last 10 years and most of my clients find that traction can be
a really important part of a healing protocol. Traction has been used for over a hundred years
clinically and probably since the beginning of time intuitively by people who'd like to relieve
compression pain, pressure pain, compression on their intervertebral discs. It's safe and it's
effective and it's something you can learn at home right now. It's really important to understand
that when it comes to back pain there is no one magic stretch, or one pill, or surgery that's
going to fix everything, but from my experience there are a handful of practices that you can use
to accelerate the healing process and probably, most importantly, to give yourself some agency
over controlling your pain. Something aside from pharmaceutical interventions and relying
on therapists and physical therapy to get relief, something you can do at home. Traction for myself
and for my clients has been one of those tools in the toolkit. Before we get started just a quick
disclaimer here: if you have a major back pain problem, if you're having trouble getting up and
down from the floor, if you're staying up at night with radiating pain, please go see a doctor. This
is for educational purposes only. In this video here's what we'll cover. We'll talk about what
traction is, the biomechanics of creating more space in your spine. We will then talk about the
historical uses, and probably, most practically, we'll look at some poses that you can do to help
create more space at home right now. Let's get started. Your spine. If you've ever heard someone
say that in the morning when you wake up you're a little bit taller, this is true. Now, you're
not inches taller, you're not centimeters taller, you are maybe one to two millimeters taller. But
when we think about our spine 25 percent of the height of your vertebral column is determined by
these intervertebral discs, meaning if those discs are compressed, squished, degenerated,
or in our case dehydrated, you can actually have more compression. When you compare this model,
which let's imagine this is an 18-year-old healthy spine, with this model which is maybe someone like
me who's maybe suffered some age, or some injury, or some compression, or some disc dehydration,
the technical term is desiccation, this is where we're much more prone to osteoarthritis pain,
stenosis pain, nerve impingement, any number of myriad of conditions that can come from having
less cushioning between your spine. Let's look at the same model in a cross section. When you
zoom in here we have our outer rings here, this is your annulus fibrosus and this doesn't have so
much water. This is more like ligament tissue. But here in the middle, your nucleus pulposus,
it's shown in green here, yours is probably not green, but this is very, very moist,
85 percent water in a healthy intervertebral disc. These discs are referred to as hydrophilic,
meaning they love to suck up water, except when you compress, especially when you get injured,
especially with age, they can start to dry out. Again, disc desiccation is a huge contributing
factor to pain and degradation of your spine. Traction can help. Now,
if we do spinal traction practices does that mean that we can take our 65-year-old spine and
make it again an 18-year-old spine? I wish. No. Does that mean that we can take years and years
of wear and tear and reverse it? No, it doesn't. But what it does mean is we can approximate some
of that healing and we can definitely encourage that hydrophilic tendency to rehydrate our spine,
create one to two millimeters more space, and in many cases that one to two millimeters can
relieve impingement pain and really help you on your healing journey. With all that said, let's
take a look at some practices. We'll start today with a standing version of cat-cow pose. Cat-cow
is a classic spine pose, but it's really effective as a traction pose when done vertically. I'm using
a tall chair. You can use a kitchen table or a kitchen countertop. Place your hands down, let
your knees drop, make sure your toes are tucked under. Now, inhale, very gently arch your spine,
and look up. Exhale, curl and drop your chin towards your chest. Inhale, arch and look up.
Exhale, curl and drop your chin towards your chest. Inhale, arch and look up.
Exhale, curl and drop your chin. It's very small movements. Inhale, arch, look up. Exhale, curl,
chin to chest. Inhale, arch, look up. Exhale, curl, chin to chest. Inhale, arch, look up.
Exhale, curl, chin towards your chest. Inhale, arch, look up. Exhale, curl, chin to chest.
Inhale, arch, look up. Exhale, curl, chin to chest. Two more. Inhale, arch, look up.
Exhale, curl your chin to your chest. One more time. Inhale, arch, lift your heart,
lift your gaze. Exhale, drop your chin to your chest, release up to a standing position.
The next pose that we'll do is a passive hang from a door. I'm using a belt here and as you can see
I've closed the belt into a door. You could also hook your hands over the top of a door frame,
that can work as well. I do find that a belt or a strap works well because as you can see
I can wrap it around my wrists and I don't need to use my grip strength. I can simply
hang from the friction of the strap on my wrists. I'll position my feet very
wide apart and then I'll squat down, down, down, and simply hang from the strap and breathe here.
My goal is to passively relax and allow gravity to do all the work,
creating just a little bit more space between my vertebrae.
Remember, as you're walking around throughout the day
gravity is naturally compressing your spine ever so slightly but more, and more,
and more with each step, and especially if you're carrying something, and especially
if you're running or jogging, there's more and more pressure on your intervertebral discs. And
a practice like this allows us to create just a little bit more space. As we're here in this pose,
let's use breathe to relax technique where we inhale through our nose to the count of four.
Now open your mouth and exhale to the count of eight with a "ha" sound.
One more time. Inhale through your nose to the count of four.
Open your mouth with a "ha" sound, exhale for eight.
Good. Slowly release, make your way up to a standing position and shake it out. I'll now
adjust my strap down lower onto the doorknob. I'll drop down onto my knees, my big toes touch
back behind me, my knees are very wide apart, and again I'll wrap my wrists around the strap,
drop down into a long child's pose, head and neck loose and relaxed. Arms are straight, again,
lengthening from my hips all the way through my fingertips, head and neck loose and relaxed.
This version of child's pose again allows us to reverse the effects of gravity, create a
little bit more space between our vertebrae, and encourage that that natural hydration of
our intervertebral discs. Let's breathe again together. Inhale through your nose for four.
Exhale through your mouth for eight.
Inhale nose four.
Exhale through your mouth for eight.
We'll do one more breath together. Inhale for four.
Exhale through your mouth for eight now.
Good. Release your hands, drop down into a child's pose, and just take a moment here to relax.
I hope you found that video helpful. If you'd like more science-based yoga videos,
please hit subscribe down below. Remember, the PDF guide to the exercises we just
covered is down below, and I always love to hear questions, comments, feedback,
down below as well. You can find my teaching calendar, including my Happy Back Challenge,
at yogabody.com. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.