Your spine is arguably the most important structure in your body, so it's important to take care of it. Your spine gets a lot of compression from daily activities, gravity and general life. Add to that the extra compression you give it with strength training and you better start decompressing it. Backbone health is really important, and I'm willing to bet that nearly everyone of you have back trouble presently. I myself hurt my lower back more or less a year ago, and this is one of the methods I utilized to regain it to 99% (yet occasionally gets tight or sore). I'll do a comprehensive post on why you have back trouble and how to correct it soon. Meanwhile, read this without further ado. What you want to do is follow an easy decompression process that helps to keep your spinal column well and mobile by helping it decompress to its original length. Here's everything you need to know How To Do Spine Decompressions You'll need a pull-up bar to perform your decompressions. As soon as you have that piece of equipment, there's two ways to do this: 1. Get Gravity Boots: This is the method that I use. These are boots that you strap onto your ankles and have hooks on them so you can hang upside down from your pullup bar safely and allow your spine to decompress. I use Teeter Hang Ups Gravity Boots. An added bonus is that with these boots I can do inverted sit ups for my abs and other cool "upside down" exercises. 2. Hang With Your Hands: This is simple. Basically hang from your pull-up bar and loosen all your muscles-hold it for as long as possible. The longer you hang the better shoot for no less than 5 minutes and build up from there. You most likely can't hang that long, so here's How To Hang On Longer With Your Hands The longer you hang the better, but your grip will probably give out. While I would never recommend using lifting straps for your regular lifting, I recommend them for decompressions because it will allow you to hang on longer. Choose nylon-type lifting straps or lifting hook straps because they're more durable. How To Relax Your Muscles So Your Spine Decompresses Your muscles need to be calm in order for your spinal column to decompress (staying tight won't help). Here's what to do whether you're making use of the gravity boots method or the hanging from your hands method: * Hang off the pull-up bar * Take a deep breath and sustain it * Tighten up your whole body (focus on abs, glutes and make fists) * Hold your whole body tense for 5 seconds * Let it all out, your breath and all the tension. Relax When you do this you'll feel your whole body relaxing and you'll probably "drop" down a little bit. You'll probably feel your back decompressing, especially the first few times. How Frequent You Must Decompress It is best to do it on a daily basis. But I should admit that I don't perform it constantly. But you actually should strive to do it as much as possible. If you get jaded hanging upside down you can read a book or something. It's best to do these right after your strength training sessions, right after your compose yourself-think of it as a part of your cooldown.
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