HEALTH


RICHARD BERCUSON


Taking care of the back of your front Humans used to sleep on dirt. For warmth,


Advisory: The following includes jargon that has either too many syllables or not enough vowels.


Grpx snuggled with Dpithl till they figured out only one side of each could stay warm no matter how they worked it. Except lying on dirt wasn’t comfortable.


For one thing, dirt got into the wrong crevices. For another, the ground was very hard. Yet, combined with dragging mastodon kills to the dinner table, it produced ripping strong backs. Grpx, Spithl and the entire Yuzhhzag


tribe regularly complained that, while their backs were powerful, they were also sore. Predictably, over time, longitudinal ligaments stiffened; fascia hardened; lumbar vertebrae creaked. Before long, people walked hunched over, their backs in agony. Then came soft beds and humans


straightened up. This was about 12,672 years ago. People still worked as hard as they’d ever done, harvesting giant walnuts in the sun or lugging boulders for temples to placate gods whose names no one could spell. It was back-breaking work, but at least they got a good sleep on a soft bed. Unfortunately, life expectancy was short because beds were either made of germ-infested straw that horses had pooped in or down from birds gutted with unsterilized knives. By the 19th


century, people’s backs got


less and less sore. It wasn’t just because beds were better. We were moving towards an urban society. We carried less, we toiled less, we hunted less. Even our guns were less cumbersome than lugging around broadswords. In short, our backs took less of a beating. Splanchic nerves no longer twitched. As you can imagine, there’s not much more annoying than a twitchy splanchic nerve. Which brings us to today’s soft beds,


fluffy duvets, pillows for shoes, and furniture. 8 BOUNDER MAGAZINE


One of those doesn’t fit the list. You’re right, it’s furniture, the contemporary version of mastodon hunting and pillar building. For thousands of years, our backs adapted


to the decreasing physical demands of daily life. Now our back muscles are feeling it. We sit on cushy car seats and lounge in La-Z- Boys. We sleep on down-less beds with 45,000 springs. Our work is done by our fingers. We’ve become mushy. Worse, we’re hunched over again. Has that stopped us from carrying on as


before? Not in the least. We torque our backs on the golf course and play macho man by heaving furniture here and there (formerly hither and thither). The back muscles, squishy from generations of increased inactivity, rebel. They yank on the vertebrae, which give


out. Sometimes they compress. Occasionally they herniate. You can even end up with radiculopathic nerves, calcified tissue, or wonky osteoplasts. (Pretty much anything you can’t pronounce or isn’t in English should be a concern.) A biomechanics primer: Muscles pull.


That’s why bending over isn’t such a big deal for your back. Straightening up, though, is. Your back muscles literally pull your torso. If you have a gut or lift a weight, they need to pull more. They don’t much like it. They’ve been in relaxation mode for eons and suddenly you’re asking them to work and strain. Since there’s no such thing as a


backectomy, we’re stuck with what is really a pain in the posterior. Now the obvious remedy would be to revert to lying on dirt and foraging for dinner in the Greenbelt. Neither is practical. Another is to seek help from people who claim to fix all that ails you. Consider the newspaper advertisement for a group that uses shockwave therapy, spinal decompression and oxygen enhancement to deal with back pain.


continued on page 60 www.bounder.ca


We are celebrating 9,125 Great Days at Loch March this year!


They include Unlimited Golf together with the use of our Practice Facility. (Quantities Limited)


Let the fun BEGIN!


In recognition of our celebration, we are offering, for the first time ever, SEASON PASSES!


Barbara Ann Studios


Barbara Ann Studios


613-839-5885 www.bounder.ca


1755 Old Carp Road, KANATA OPEN YEAR ROUND


www.lochmarch.com BOUNDER MAGAZINE 9


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