A lot of health professionals in various fields HAVE reacted like this was some exotic condition that scared them
Health professionals are easily scared. Remember that most of the people they meet are in pain or discomfort, pain or discomfort which all too often only gets worse over the years, and which may kill them. Health professionals don't see you when your condition improves - you get better, you don't go back - they only see you when you're getting worse.
So many of them get a frightened and negative view of the world. Our experiences shape our attitudes.
Again,
almost everyone has some muscle imbalances caused by their affected posture, work, lifestyle, sports, etc.
Look around you on the street or at the office, you'll see people with their head and shoulders forwards - that's excessive kyphosis (forward curve of upper back and neck), which means the muscles of the upper back are long and weak, and those of the chest and shoulders are short and tight.
Or look at many young women with boobs, belly and butt sticking out - they have an excessive lordosis (backward curve of lower back) - giving them long and weak gluteal, hamstring and abdominal muscles, and short and tight hip flexors and quads.
Wander down to the river and look at a rowing team sometime, look at their backs when they're standing around - one side is stronger than the other, this pulls their spine to one side.
Muscle imbalances are thus nothing unusual. What's different is that with most people, their
lifestyle causes the imbalance, so exercise can correct it almost 100% - with scoliosis, it's the fundamental structure of the spine. So the imbalance can be
lessened but it can never be zero. People can change their lifestyles; we cannot change our spines.
Do you mean this in the way that we would have to be conscious of how we hold our hips and shoulders and that we are not allowing the weights to pull us to one side?
Yes.
Everyone needs a nice straight back when lifting. But as I said, for people without scoliosis, being straight in the left-right dimensions comes naturally. For scoliosis, the person must concentrate on it.
However, everyone must concentrate on being straight forward-back. So it just means that the scoliosis person has two dimensions to think about instead of one. Which is hard, but not impossible.
I must admit I'm a little confused too on the issue of deadlifts - when you do workplace health and safety training on lifting they want you to start with your spine as close to vertical as possible and maintain the same spinal position whilst lifting with the legs.
Different situations. At work, they want to keep everyone safe. How can they do that when some people are strong, some weak? Well... they have to assume
everyone is weak. Their "safe lifting" guidelines are not written for athletic young people, they're written for the overweight 50 year old guy with three herniated discs in his back. They're not trying to make you strong, they're just trying to keep you alive for this one lift.
Since most people have weak backs, the safest thing for them to do is lift using their legs. Safety first.
The deadlifting guidelines, on the other hand, are designed to get you to do a lift and
make you stronger. You don't make your back stronger by using your legs instead.
That said, the OHS lifting guidelines
if properly taught are not so different. You don't want to be bending your spine in deadlifts, either. More on that below.
With deadlifts it appears you're aiming to change the spinal position as you lift - but isn't this what H&S trainers always say strains the back and can cause crushed vertebrae etc?
Assuming a healthy but not strong back, what causes damage is
repeated lifts with rounding. The vertebrae are designed to fit together like so =, when the back rounds, they end up like so >. Now, if all you're doing is picking up your car keys that doesn't matter. Pick up 100kg and it's rather different.
I think what I'm picking up from your post is that spinal position isn't the biggest issue because its the muscles that are creating the movement and they need to guide and support the spine through a safe range???
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
The biggest issue is good posture. The spine has a series of natural curves to it,
and our aim should be that when lifting we stay as close as possible to those natural curves. Look again at the good deadlift,
notice for example the curve in his lower back. He has it when standing, he has it when picking up the weight. It's not the
spine that's bending up and down as he lifts the weight, the spine is held rigid - it's the
hips that are bending.
Sitting there now, if you want to lean in close to the screen, there are two ways to do it. You can bend your neck and upper back forward - ie, bend your spine - or you can pivot your hips while keeping your spine straight. The second makes you look a bit demented, so we usually choose the first.
Same deal with lifting heavy stuff off the ground. We can bend our spine, or bend at the hips. Bending at the hips while keeping the spine rigid is the way to go.
Probably the best way to explain it to you is to always imagine that you still have that brace on keeping your spine straight.
Again, I recommend a sports physiotherapist to you. After that, once you begin a course of physical training, get someone experienced (someone you trust, and/or a paid trainer or coach) to show you the lifts. This stuff is much, much clearer when we can move our bodies around as we speak. Five minutes in person could be better than five weeks online.
Best of luck, Tina.