Is the Alexander Technique useful for posture and back pain?
The Alexander Technique is basically an education and retraining of the bad postural/muscular habits we’ve picked up since we learned to stand as toddlers. It’s done under the guidance of a trained practitioner (I believe it takes 3 years to complete the training), but the onus is really on you to learn your bad habits and change them during and between sessions. The basic idea is that when we’re babies, our bodies are pretty well aligned. Look at toddlers as they waddle around – they pretty much manage to keep their heads balanced freely on top of their spines, and when they don’t, they fall down. As we grow up, we make adjustments that allow us to move in various ways without falling down…but those muscular movements aren’t always so good for us. An Alexander practitioner will train you to observe your own alignment, and will gently guide you into the proper alignment, which will feel awkward and while you’ll lose in about 10 seconds. But over time, you’ll learn to sit, stand, and
Alexander Technique is definitely useful for posture and alignment issues, and will make you aware of patterns and habits you may not have noticed (turnout/turning in of your hips, head held too far up/down/forward, walking on your toes, etc). You’ll definitely learn things in one session and then you can decide if it would be useful to continue. After that, you may find ongoing practices like Pilates or yoga more useful to continue working on alignment and build strength in your abdominal muscles. For me, this has eliminated back pain entirely. Cost should be in the range of any other bodywork in your area (in SF, generally $80-100 per session).
The Feldenkrais method could also help you out. It’s focused more on the whole body and its movement, whereas to my understanding Alexander is focused more specifically on posture. They share some commonalities but I find Feldenkrais to be more “holistic” for lack of a better word.
More thoughts, truisms, and myths: – AT is most commonly seen in the media as something that musicians and actors study. I’ve seen several tv news segments (long ago, sources forgotten) on violinists and music students who incorporate an Alexander session into their weekly (or even daily) routine. – Alexander Technique is based on human physiology, and the idea that when the body is properly aligned, movement occurs easily (and conversely, when years of sitting in crappy office chairs and car seats have resulted in bad muscular habits, movement does not happen easily –> pain results). During a session, you may look at skeletons and diagrams of the muscular systems so that you understand how your own body works. – A lot of people bail on Alexander study because progress is slow and there is little immediate gratification. It doesn’t feel like you’re doing very much…until one day you suddenly realize that your back pain is gone, or you’re standing straighter, or you can breathe more e
I just posted this in another thread, but I just read in Yoga Journal that a recent medical study demonstrated that yoga was more effective than physical therapy for back pain. So if you think you might need physical therapy for another issue in the future and your insurance lets you save those sessions, it might be worth considering that.
