Relief is in the Stretch: End Back Pain Through Yoga

by Loren Fishman, Carol Ardman

Relief Is In The Stretch is the first book to distinguish the nine common causes of low back pain, to teach you how to identify them, and to describe appropriate yoga poses to relieve each one of them. Dr. Loren M. Fishman, a specialist in rehabilitation medicine who has been using yoga in his medical practice for thirty years, studied yoga in India for a year with B. K. S. Iyengar and is an internationally recognized expert in research and clinical treatment of sciatica and low back pain. This book helps you determine how to start your own yoga practice or alter your existing practice, depending on the severity and chronicity of your pain, and on your physical condition. The postures in this guide, each one illustrated by a photograph, target specific sources of pain--from arthritis to spinal stenosis, from pregnancy to sacroiliac joint derangement--and demonstrate how you can manage, reduce, and ultimately end your pain.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health

208 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 2005

About the author

Loren Fishman, MD, is a professor at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and lives in New York City. "

Reviews

[Diane Wachter]

Relief is in the Stretch: End Back Pain through Yoga, Loren Fishman, M.D., HB-B, @ 2005, 2006. Offers specific yoga techniques to cure or control back pain and Sciatica according to it's cause. Interesting.

[M]

What I liked about this book was that there were separate chapters for different kinds of back pain. So, I just need to focus on learning the moves from one chapter. It's very helpful.

[Rolls Eyes]

There's always a problem when reading books like this (medical / lifestyle / exercise), and it's reader interpretation; interpretation of poses, positions, and whether or not you're just doing them wrong...How would you really know without someone to watch you who knows the position?

That is still here, but Fishman really does do a thorough job in laying out what's what, when it comes to how-to-do. It's not perfect, it could never be without sending someone over with every copy of the book to spot you ;), but it does a functional job in getting across the information on each pose, its benefit and what damage you could do to yourself if you get it wrong, etc.

The biggest takeaway from reading this book is that you gain an insight into the benefits of certain Yoga poses from a medical perspective, rather than a spiritual or traditional one. Fishman's research has been as comprehensive as he is able to make it, given the limited research carried out so far. And that is certainly reflected in the text and pictures of poses.

If you're looking for a more medical and technical perspective on some Yoga poses, then this is pretty good.

[Jennifer]

I just copied the poses that I think I can do.