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From Bad Back Pain to Easy Good Posture

One of the best ways to rest a bad back and develop a strong, comfortable, healthy back is to lie down often.

While the floor is widely recognised as an ideal place to lie down and rest your back, I believe a hammock is even better. In fact, the only problem with lying in a hammock instead of on the floor is that you won’t want to get up again.

lady lying back in a hammock
Do you reckon this young lady’s back could be smiling?

A hammock is good because it encourages you to stop hollowing your lower back.

Many people fear a hammock will give them a bad back. On the contrary, its tendency to curl you up is very healthy. An even slightly hollowed back is bad because it disconnects your chest from it’s natural strong resting place on top of a firm belly.

This disconnection both weakens you and stiffens you. If you re-connect, allowing your chest to rest on your belly, your back is relieved of the need to work to hold you up. Your healthy back, relieved of that unnecessary burden, can now move freely, reserving its strength for when you really need it.

When your back is left free to move like this, your ribs can begin to breathe effortlessly. You can begin to access the enormous, normally unused breathing capacity of your back. Good vocal technique depends on this.

Leaving vocal technique aside for the moment, it’s time to map out the road from your present bad back to the healthy back you could be enjoying.

Person finding their way on an A-Z map
Find your map here

Map your way to a healthy back: What you must do to lose your bad back

Once you have the map, you’ll find the further information you’ll need in the articles listed below.

The articles that make it happen

How your hips are like a bracelet
How opening your back out like a fan lets you breathe
Now do you see why you should never pull your shoulders back?
Why opening out like a fan gives you broad shoulders
Should your bottom wiggle when you walk?
Why not finding your sitting bones makes you slump
Choosing an office chair for working at your computer
Running the Exercise Gauntlet 1: The Scapular Wall Slide
Why you should avoid memory foam mattresses
How letting your arms be heavy makes them light
How to cook without crumpling
Why your belly will never be right until it breathes
Break the log-jam that stunts your Alexander Technique progress
How to beat the taboo and stand tall
Why you can’t stand straight until you come up out of your legs
How to survive a long car drive
Are you afraid to enjoy sitting in your easy chair?
How to fix your car seat so you don't get a painful stiff back
How the Alexander Technique Makes Sense of Idiopathic Scoliosis
Scoliosis and the Alexander Technique: quick relief or lasting solution?
How to Un-freeze a Frozen Shoulder
How to ease the pain in your shoulder (and the pain in your neck too)
Why you should never try to keep your back straight
Why your good posture is bed-ridden — and how to help it get it’s strength back
Bad Back Chairs: Why ergonomic chairs only give you a bad back
Introduction to “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine”
How to recover quickly from a sudden bad back
Heal your bad back and slipped disc
A Slipped Disc and the Alexander Technique: quick relief or lasting solution?
Sciatica and the Alexander Technique: quick relief or lasting solution?
Spondylitis and the Alexander Technique: quick relief or lasting solution?
How to stop your Demented Mechanic giving you that bad back
Stand, sit & walk tall and pain-free
How to use your passion to fix your bad back
Why not understanding your shoulders causes back, neck and shoulder painheadphone image
Let your pain teach you how to be pain-freeheadphone image
Getting rid of lower back pain: How to loosen your back up
How to sit at a computer for eight hours without painheadphone image
A Bad Back and the Alexander Technique: quick relief or lasting solution?

Seven articles to help you straighten out anything from a tiny stoop to a full-blown hunchback

  1. How to straighten a hunchback, part 1: introduction
  2. Getting rid of a hunchback, part 2: the other five steps
  3. Getting rid of a hunchback, part 3: swing your legs from your hip joints
  4. Getting rid of a hunchback, part 4: stop leaning backwards from your waist or hips
  5. Getting rid of a hunchback, part 5: stop holding your chest up: rest your chest on your belly
  6. Getting rid of a hunchback, part 6: why you should always breathe with your back
  7. Why pulling your shoulders back doesn’t work


“Back in Action”
Guiding your way to a pain-free back.
  1. Here are over 100 uniquely helpful articles
  2. Get the newest article every Wednesday by subscribing to “Back in Action” Subscribe to “Back in Action”
  3. You also get
    “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine”

    This 23-page booklet is indispensable to anyone serious about getting a stronger pain-free back — and it’s free

Book image. “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine” by Philip Pawley. Including: The little-understood real reason why Semi-Supine is so important - Detailed instructions on how and when to lie down - Persuade your boss to beg you to take rests at work.
Medical Proof

Medical Study proves lasting effectiveness of the Alexander Technique for low back pain.

British Medical Journal video on the Alexander Technique

Published in the prestigious British Medical Journal on 19 August 2008, this randomised controlled medical trial compares Alexander Technique lessons, exercise and massage for chronic and recurrent back pain.

Clients’ Stories
Jean kept falling over after a hip replacement
Lady with a Hip Replacement

“My teacher is Philip Pawley and I can thoroughly recommend him: he’s patient, kind and knows what he’s doing. He’s given me a new life.”

Rob is a yoga teacher
Yoga Teacher

“My interest in the Technique came from my interest in yoga. At the time when I heard about it, I thought that this would be a useful thing for me to learn — just a development of what I understood yoga to be.”

Margery was disabled by osteoporosis
Lady with Osteoporosis

“Since starting with the Alexander Technique, it has boosted my confidence tremendously. It does so much more besides just helping you with the osteoporosis.”

Caroline is an opera singer
Opera Singer

“I have got enormous benefit out of a series of thirty-minute sessions with Philip Pawley. My whole stance has improved and I’m singing better.”

Watch the full video

The above are short excerpts from a 7-minute video. See the whole video on YouTube
Read the transcript

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