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(More customer reviews)Dr. Bookspan's approach is to teach you enough about body mechanics to understand how you are supposed to fit together, then give exercise suggestions aimed at either stretching tight areas out or sliding the parts that don't fit together back into place. A major theme is letting you feel how your muscles are supposed to work via the exercises so you can correct how you hold yourself and move all the time. Jolie speaks in terms of transferring what you learn about body mechanics by exercise into lessons for everyday life. Since the body is a system where misalignment in one area can cascade into pain in other locations, the book wraps up with some sample stories of people who started with one issue and then watched things go out of control from there. It details how these patients were eventually able to wean themselves off medicine (and often various quack "cures" like bad supplements) simply by focusing on how the body should work and exercising it until everything was back in place.
I suspect that the very active nature of these suggestions will be the main problem with this book for many people. Most solutions here are in the form of things you need to do every day for some period of time, perhaps even the rest of your life, in order to adjust your body to work the way it's supposed to as we all continue to get older. There are some quick-fixes to be found in this title, but that's the exception. For example, I had been suffering for about a year with problems related to what she calls forward-neck. In literally five minutes after reading her description of the problem (as part of the extensive free information given on the author's web site) and finally understanding what had gone wrong, I slid my neck back into place using one of her suggested exercises. There was a little pop, and just like that the pain that had been haunting me for months was gone. Hasn't been back since, because now I've learned to feel when my neck is moving in the wrong direction and correct it before it gets bad again. I can assure you that her suggestions were new to me even though I'd been searching for information on this topic regularly that entire year, finding little useful advice anywhere. That was a great lesson that took only moments to learn; the rest of what I'd like to "fix...without drugs or surgery" is going to take a series of stretches performed every day for quite some time.
The bulk of the book consists of seven chapters focusing on pain in a specific area of the body: neck/upper-back, lower-back, shoulder, hip, knee, ankle/Achilles, foot, and wrist. The chapters are aimed to be self-contained, which is both good and bad. The good side is that if you have a specific pain area you want to focus on, you can dive right into that chapter and go. The main problem with this approach is that there is quite a bit of redundant content, and often the information about a specific exercise is split across several areas. This book badly needs an index. The main saving grace of the organizational issues is that the text itself is so easy and fun to read, chock full of helpful advice on every page, that you'll eventually want to read it cover to cover anyway.
Along with the exercises, you get an outline of medical issues that might be causing problems so you don't let a more serious issue go undiagnosed. As suggested by the title, the main audience that will appreciate this book are those who have already done a tour of doctors and therapists, been through enough tests to rule out major problems, and then were told that serious medication or elective surgery were the only options available. Sometimes, that's completely incorrect, and all the patient really needs is to is reverse harmful posture and movements that are the root cause of the pain--a topic most doctors are woefully under trained at giving suggestions on.
It's not a plan for couch potatoes, but it can work. As a long-time gym rat used to suffering for my gains, the thing that impresses me the most about the specific exercises advocated here is how good they feel to perform. The week I first tried Dr. Bookspan's somewhat different back extension exercises, that felt better than anything else I did that week.
Having read most of the popular titles on this subject during the two years I've been trying to correct my own pain issues, I can tell you with some authority that this book is destined to be a classic in this area. Much of the material is unique, and all of it I've tried out has been extremely helpful. The only area I'd really suggest supplementing this title's coverage with is that of multifidus training for resolving back issues. While many of the exercises here will strengthen that area, I didn't note any that taught specifically how to note weakness there and how to focus on it. Either Jim Johnson's "The Multifidus Back Pain Solution" or Rick Jemmett's "Spinal Stabilization" would make great companion volumes to this one (and reading all three books is even better), and anyone who enjoyed those two will find this one has a similar tone and approach, but with much broader coverage.
I would recommend that you check out the book's web site, try some of the exercises presented there, and see if they seem sensible and/or feel good when you try them. If you like how a subset of Dr. Jolie Bookspan's recommendations sound, I guarantee you'll love the more comprehensive treatment offered in this book.
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Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery
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