Bill drove long hours at a stretch to cover his sales route in the West. As a result, he had back pain that was difficult to relieve because he was forced to maintain the position that made it worse: sitting hunched over the wheel of his car. But he had started with bad posture in the first place - a swayback and bowlegs that increased the pressure on his lower back. He sat either too far back over his hips, so that his spine was stressed by squeezed-together abdominals, or with a swayback, which compressed the muscles of his lower back. More about: Driving for Success

 

Dr. Bonner wasn’t sure at first how much she’d be able to help Bill, a man of thirty-eight who drove long hours at a stretch to cover his sales route in the West.  He had back pain that was difficult to relieve because he was forced to maintain the position that made it worse: sitting hunched over the wheel of his car.  But he had started with bad posture in the first place - a swayback and bowlegs that increased the pressure on his lower back.  He sat either too far back over his hips, so that his spine was stressed by squeezed-together abdominals, or with a swayback, which compressed the muscles of his lower back.

Over a period of months Bill and Dr. Bonner worked together whenever he was in town, concentrating on lengthening his back and strengthening his abdominal muscles.  Eventually she was able to give him a natural “girdle” formed by the muscles of his whole lower torso - strong abdominals and back muscles that held him firmly and made it possible for him to sit easily upright even during his many hours on the road.  And of course he learned to get out and take a good stretch whenever he had to stop for gas, or whenever he got tired or felt pain and tension coming on.

By learning to listen attentively to feedback from his body, and talking a stretch or a rest before the trouble became acute, Bill no longer found driving long distances an ordeal.  He arrived at his destinations feeling fresh and energetic, not worn out from pain and fatigue.