| Escape Back Pain |
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Page 2 of 2 Follow Clinton Phillips’s plan for a better back  If a trip to Aspen this fall or winter isn’t in the cards, order Phillips’s Heal the Back beginner or advanced DVD (beginner, $30; advanced, $20; both, $40; aspenback.com/dvd.html). In the beginne... “The first thing we do is find out how much the mind is affecting this person,” says Phillips. “It can be as much as 90 percent.” To that end, each client completes a 16-statement form, ranking items such as “I have a fear of developing back pain” and “I lack a social network” and “I have trouble sleeping.” After Phillips studies the questionnaire, he’ll ask for more information around disconcerting answers. “Just the question ‘How are you sleeping at night?’ usually leads to a whole host of other issues,” says the chiropractor. “People will say, ‘I can’t sleep because my boss is putting me under pressure’ or ‘I can’t sleep because my kids are little bastards.’ We don’t try to be psychologists, but we try to help people understand they can have pain from emotional causes. I can’t help you with your divorce, but I can get you stronger and prepared for stressful events.” After that, Phillips will look at your body’s strength, flexibility, alignment, and trigger points, determining where muscles are under- or over-utilized. “We like to get our hands on people,” without getting too touchy-feely, explains Phillips. “The biggest problem in the American medical system is that people don’t touch. You may get an X-ray, an injection, an MRI, and some counseling, but nobody says, ‘Let me feel.’ ” Some clients stay a day; some stay six weeks. Either way, Phillips and his staff of three physical therapists, an orthopedic doctor, and three personal trainers, plus Pilates, Gyrotonics, yoga, and boxing instructors, will put clients on a few key machines after the mental assessment. One is the Vibra-Gym, a platform that vibrates while you stand on it—the novel idea being that the extra movement loosens you up and also disrupts your equilibrium so your core muscles work harder. Then you might graduate to the medieval-looking “flexion-distraction table” to open up your spine, an underwater treadmill to improve alignment, or the gym to work on strength. Ultimately, the goal is to get you back to the activities you love the most. “Clint is a master at tuning in to a degenerative back and joints,” says Semrau. For the builder’s seized-up back, Phillips designed a three- to four-time-per-week program of stretching and strengthening that centers around the Vibra-Gym (Semrau loved it so much he bought his own) and Phillips’s Heal the Back DVD, a series of ten to 15 easy-to-follow core back exercises. “I’ve learned how to keep my back pain in remission,” says Semrau. “If I go out and ski bumps for five hours, it’s going to hurt some—I’m not 25. But at least I don’t need surgery.” “We can’t remove problems,” Phillips adds. “But we can remove the response. Just because your back isn’t perfect doesn’t mean you can’t be pain-free.” Comments (0)
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