Spring has arrived and the “Tunick Ramp”

Multnomah FallsThe weather has been awesome in the Pacific Northwest and now that Spring has arrived a lot of folks are coming out of the Winter doldrums and getting back into gardening, hiking, exercising, biking, and a whole lot of activity.

This made me think about the “Tunick Ramp”! I think you will find this discussion interesting and of real value.

One of the challenges that a lot of my lower back pain patients face on the road to recovery, is how to get back into being active without running the risk of re-injury. Most folks are very anxious to get back into the swing of things….to ‘take back their life’ once again. Let’s face it, because of their injury or history of pain, they have had to drastically cut back on doing all of the things they love to do. Whether we are talking about playing with the kids, exercising, whatever….they have had to give it up.

Here’s where the “Tunick Ramp” comes into play.

Having treated folks with ‘bad backs’ for 35 years now, I’ve learned that the best way to rehab successfully is to  ‘ramp up’ your activities slowly. Start out with a small amount of activity or load, and then over time increase in small increments, always stopping when you still have ‘plenty of gas’ left in the tank. Sure, you can probably do more, but at what price? Most folks are so anxious to get back to full ’tilt’ that they keep pushing until they start to ‘feel it’ and that’s when they back off. Unfortunately the ‘feel’ is often the early signs of inflammation and its the language of the body trying to talk to us. How many of us actually listen to the ‘whisper’ of the body? Not too many, and for a lot of folks, they keep pushing until the body has to ‘scream’ at them and trouble has set in.

So do yourself a favor as you welcome Spring back and you start to get back into activities you love and have missed doing for awhile. Get on the “Tunick Ramp”  and you’ll be on the highway to good health!