I am looking at a device that helps the spine to get its alignment back. Here is what I don't get: Are we humans so badly designed that vertebraes need constant alignment? I can understand if after a sport injury or a sudden move it gets out of place, but general everyday movement sure shouldn't cause disalignment. So is this just a device to scam the naive?
Yes, we're badly designed. This is why I've filed a Lawsuit against God. I'm sueing for damages and negligence, due diligence of quality and failure to honor warranty. All animals get spine problems. We humans get knee problems more than most animals because we walk upright. I wouldn't guess that we get spine problems more than other animals, though I might guess that ours are different- again because we walk upright putting pressure down on the spine and the four legged variety drag their belly on their spine sagging the middle of it.
try bodysurfing. a few hours each day in the surf, being tumbled around, with complete support of the body by the water, allows for the spine to align properly. if you don't body-surf, just go swimming and twirl around a lot in the water. cheaper than a chiropractor, and better.
I found that the machine used on this video helped me with my degenerated disk problem by allowing my spine to be streched slowly thereby reducing the pressure on my spine overall. It doesn't last long however but does feel great when you leave the device for a few hours. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...woHICg&usg=AFQjCNEqpMM9qdwtu-pYrpNi7FU9x0-3SQ
I'm thinking that a brace might help if it's not too uncomfortable. That way you can help hold it in alignment while the ligaments strengthen for it.
There is a very expensive version of that machine, chiropractors buy it and sell 10-12 session alignments with it, if I remember $60-80 per session. The cheap, but just as effective version is to buy a inversion table (I got a very sturdy one from Amazon for $130) and just let gravity do the same stretching of your spine. I usually get sleppy on it because of the blood going to my brain. I am getting possibly smarter too... Beside it has only a one time cost, you don't have to drive to any chiro office and you can use it as many times a day as you want. Anyhow, the device I was talking about is Spine-Worx: http://www.amazon.com/Spineworx-SW1...UTF8&qid=1350678650&sr=8-2&keywords=back pain The reviews are mostly positive, I just don't get why a spine would need alignement so often. Must be a design problem...
We are a bipedal species and an increasing number of people seem to have crooked legs, offset knees, one leg longer than another, feet not well aligned under them etc. This impacts the spine over time as well as injury and just plain wear and tear. Add the extra weight that many people are carrying and it's only a matter of time until something gives. If you want an interesting visual exercise, park yourself somewhere and just watch people walk and look at the alignment of their leg bones and how smooth they travel, or not. It is truly scary to see how many are toed in, toed out or walk with a limp or irregular stride. I dare say, if we were horses, damn few would pass a vet check for soundness. I'm truly curious of how much of this is attributable to our modern diet and lack of activity.
Or raising. Man, my parents and grandparents were like movement nazi's. Learning to walk wasn't enough, they regulated how I walked, how I placed my feet, whether I walked with my back straight, shoulders out- so on and so on. I'm willing to bet that a lot of parents these days throw shoes on the kids feet and say, "Well, job's done."
Notice that no other large animal walks bipedally all the time. It is a tremendous anatomical compromise. For starters, we have to have locking knees so we can stand upright without having to exert constant pressure to keep our legs straight. This required re-routing most of the muscles in our thighs and upper legs. Most obvious is the gluteus maximus, the double-hemisphere more commonly referred to as the "butt." Those muscles keep us erect when we're standing and keep our legs moving forward when we're walking or running. Then all of our internal organs had to be realigned so they could continue to function in a full-time vertical orientation rather than simply squashing each other. But the real compromise became necessary as our brains continued to enlarge. Our forebrain is more than double the size of any other ape in proportion to body size--this is what gives us the ability to override instinctive behavior with reasoned and learned behavior, such as living in harmony and cooperation with total strangers instead of our ancestors' extended-families who had cared for and depended on each other from birth. Most mammals are born with their brains reasonably well-developed. A newborn giraffe literally hits the ground running. Even baby dogs and cats can start exploring a few weeks after birth. But human babies are helpless for months, and require constant parenting for a decade and a half--whales only take two years and elephants five. The reason is that a full-grown brain makes the head too large to fit through the birth canal. So why not widen the birth canal, you ask? It's because of bipedal walking. If the pelvis was wider, our legs would be farther apart. As it is, the rocking couple as we transfer 100% of our body weight from one foot to the other and then back again, many times per minute, puts a colossal impact on everything below the waist, which is transmitted to everything above the waist including the spine. Make that stance a few inches wider and we'd spend half our lives on the chiropractor's table. So yes, we're badly designed from the standpoint of skeletal integrity. But of course we're brilliantly designed from another perspective. Ardipithecus is the first hominid species we've found that had come down out of the trees and walked bipedally. The advantage of this is that Ardi could use his hands to carry things. One male could go out looking for food and bring it back to a female with a baby, who was able to remain safely near the trees. (Yes, the discovery of Ardi finally settled the question of where bipedal walking evolved. It was in the forest, not on the savannah.)
