Greenbook: A Local Guide to Chesapeake Living - Issue 8 | Page 36

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FITNESS
WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO RELIEVE CHRONIC BACK PAIN?
REGAIN BALANCE? BEND, TWIST, TURN OR REACH WITHOUT
FEELING SORE? FEEL STRONGER? MORE CONFIDENT? MORE
ENERGETIC? DARE WE SAY…SEXIER?
A STRONG, FLEXIBLE CORE IS THE FOUNDATION FOR ALL OF
THESE GOALS.

Ab workout with the exercise ball

T

wo years ago I ran the Annapolis Zooma 10k road race.
I finished at the front of the pack with a great time.
But I did it with incredible back pain. Shortly after, I
was completely sidelined, unable to even walk, much less
engage in the active lifestyle I usually enjoy. After numerous visits to Anne Arundel Medical Center's Spine Center, I
discovered that the root of my pain was simple. I had the endurance to run for miles, but a pitiful lack of core strength.
I couldn’t hold a plank for more than 45 seconds. My hips
flexors couldn’t hold my pelvic bones in their proper position; alignment was impossible to maintain. I was in constant discomfort.
“You engage the core of your body with just about every
move you make. Even when you are sitting or standing still”,
Stacey Fletcher, my Physical Therapist at Bayside Physical
Therapy in Millersville told me. These muscles (technically,
the deepest core muscles are the Transversus abdominus,
or deepest abdominal muscles; the Multifidus or deepest

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GREENBOOK | SUMMER 2016

back muscle, which runs along the sides of the spine; the
Pelvic Floor and the Diaphragm) are like the trunk of a tree,
she explained. It makes sense that if your center is weak,
your roots and branches—your body from from head to toe-will falter.
Stacey and her colleague Brittany Powers were able to
touch the points of my deep-seated pain [pun intended].
They massaged the hard and twisted tendons that clinched
the nerves in my back and legs as they sought to hold my
muscles and bones in place. There was a lot of ice and heat
involved. Eventually, Stacey and Brittany developed an action plan to rebuild my strength from the inside out. The
protocol included several exercises, some using tiny and
subtle movements, that engaged the deepest tissues in my
core and that they promised would make staying active a
possibility.
Having never developed a strong core in the past, I was
surprised by how strong I came to feel, and by how a