Back Care: Empowerment from the Inside Out
As a scoliosis patient in my early teens, not one person told me that I had any control over the strength and flexibility of my own muscles.
I was put in an incredibly disempowered position.
The narrative was: "You have a spinal curvature, there is nothing you can do to stop it except wear an ugly, external brace. Just live with it."
That narrative was such a lie, but I was a kid. All I knew was what adults taught me.
Even as adults, we are only as wise as the information we run across or are forced to learn.
Thus, I see this disempowerment narrative running rampant in media narratives and even in medical education.
No doctor I have ever met, not even the orthopedic surgeons, has told me how to strengthen the longissimus dorsi, the multifidi, the gluteus medius, or the transversus abdominus. Those are all muscles in the trunk. When strong, they help you walk upright and have lovely posture.
Walking upright with lovely posture feels great, it feels empowering, as does knowing a thing or two about the body.
So, for more than 20 years, I have been educating people about their bodies.
Which muscles do what? Over what do I have control? How can I stretch this one muscle so that I have more comfort in my shoulder or more range in my hip joint?
These are all questions about which many medical professionals don't seem to have a clue.
Thanks to my many years of functional fitness training and experience, it's the area in which I shine.
This knowledge has kept my own back strong and and my whole body functionally sound for more than 20 years, even after having almost my whole spine fused for scoliosis.
Back in the early 2010's, I spent a lot of time and energy bringing my knowledge to the public in workshops and classes. The feedback from students inspired me to keep filling this gap.
I was put in an incredibly disempowered position.
The narrative was: "You have a spinal curvature, there is nothing you can do to stop it except wear an ugly, external brace. Just live with it."
That narrative was such a lie, but I was a kid. All I knew was what adults taught me.
Even as adults, we are only as wise as the information we run across or are forced to learn.
Thus, I see this disempowerment narrative running rampant in media narratives and even in medical education.
No doctor I have ever met, not even the orthopedic surgeons, has told me how to strengthen the longissimus dorsi, the multifidi, the gluteus medius, or the transversus abdominus. Those are all muscles in the trunk. When strong, they help you walk upright and have lovely posture.
Walking upright with lovely posture feels great, it feels empowering, as does knowing a thing or two about the body.
So, for more than 20 years, I have been educating people about their bodies.
Which muscles do what? Over what do I have control? How can I stretch this one muscle so that I have more comfort in my shoulder or more range in my hip joint?
These are all questions about which many medical professionals don't seem to have a clue.
Thanks to my many years of functional fitness training and experience, it's the area in which I shine.
This knowledge has kept my own back strong and and my whole body functionally sound for more than 20 years, even after having almost my whole spine fused for scoliosis.
Back in the early 2010's, I spent a lot of time and energy bringing my knowledge to the public in workshops and classes. The feedback from students inspired me to keep filling this gap.
How Important Are Exercises?
In 2011, I developed a whole training program around my knowledge of how the body works. Known as the Hauber Method, it made a real difference in many people's lives.
The method showed people how to stretch and strengthen muscles in the core, back, shoulders, glutes, and legs. It showed people that they are not victims to a mysterious body, but instead had agency over how they felt in their own skin, It gave them power.
Most importantly, as I explain on the Hauber Method page, it made people feel safe in their own body. And when it comes to back pain, that feeling of safety is the most important thing anyone can get from any exercise or stretching program.
It's mind-body healing all the way.
Since completing my PhD, I am focusing more energy on educating clinicians and healthcare practitioners about how enhance, rather than hinder, their patients' own capacity for mind-body healing, because clinicians hold so much power when someone makes an appointment for persisting back or joint problems.
As the quote from a former client, Jennnifer, illustrates below, doctors try all kinds of things except the things that really work when it comes to treating pain: listening, attention, belief, and empowerment. My goal is to teach clinicians so that others don't need to go through so much dramatic healthcare seeking before finding relief.
The method showed people how to stretch and strengthen muscles in the core, back, shoulders, glutes, and legs. It showed people that they are not victims to a mysterious body, but instead had agency over how they felt in their own skin, It gave them power.
Most importantly, as I explain on the Hauber Method page, it made people feel safe in their own body. And when it comes to back pain, that feeling of safety is the most important thing anyone can get from any exercise or stretching program.
It's mind-body healing all the way.
Since completing my PhD, I am focusing more energy on educating clinicians and healthcare practitioners about how enhance, rather than hinder, their patients' own capacity for mind-body healing, because clinicians hold so much power when someone makes an appointment for persisting back or joint problems.
As the quote from a former client, Jennnifer, illustrates below, doctors try all kinds of things except the things that really work when it comes to treating pain: listening, attention, belief, and empowerment. My goal is to teach clinicians so that others don't need to go through so much dramatic healthcare seeking before finding relief.
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I don’t know how to thank Sara Hauber enough for helping me transform my life.
Having suffered a debilitating injury that resulted in two severely herniated and ruptured discs in my lumbar spine, along with sciatic pain radiating down both legs, I had felt for nearly three years like I was in my 80’s, rather than in my 30’s. I tried every treatment available: chiropractic, acupuncture, cranio-sacral therapy, massage and deep tissue work, physical therapy, VAX-D decompression therapy – each of which provided minor temporary relief, but never for more than a day or two at a time. I obtained several series of steroid injections in my low back every other month for over two years, and those only lasted a few weeks at a time. Doctors prescribed every painkiller and muscle relaxer available, but I was unable to tolerate the side effects of any medications.
Furthermore, I did not want to become dependent on drugs to get by. After two and a half years of almost daily treatments and constant pain, I finally resorted to surgery, which provided only minimal improvement. I felt my life was over. I was so depressed from having endured such severe levels of pain for so long and having spent so much of my life in various treatments, I was desperate to make it all end.
Then, one day, I heard about Sara’s “Happy Hips and a Healthy Back” workshop at Namaskar Yoga in Chicago. I thought about it for days, but I feared that trying yet another avenue for relief would just be a disappointment like everything else. However, I decided at the last minute to go ahead and give it a chance, and it turned out to be the best decision I could have ever made.
The day of the workshop, I had been having a particularly rough day, and I limped into the yoga studio that day, hunched over, with a pain level of about 8 on a scale of 10. Within the first five minutes of the workshop, however, I was completely amazed when the pain dropped to an almost undetectable level! What a miracle! I was able to stand up straight, and even do strength and balance exercises that I never thought possible. I remember smiling in the middle of the workshop and thinking to myself, “I don’t know if I’ve smiled genuinely like this since before the accident happened [3 years before].”
I signed up for individual training to have Sara come to work with me in my home. During our sessions, she has taught me exercises tailored to my specific physical needs, which vary due to the complexities of the injuries. The exercises are different from any standard physical therapy I had been prescribed by several providers in the past. Sara’s approach has helped me learn to alleviate pain by targeting the muscle groups that become weakened due to overcompensation, as well as understanding how to interpret the signals my body sends me so that I instinctively know which exercises will be most effective at any given time. Now, I feel empowered to treat myself, rather than relying on doctors and alternative therapists to give me expensive and less effective treatments in their offices.
Sara’s cheerful and positive demeanor has served as a real source of motivation for me to approach each day with new hope. I wish there were more people like Sara in the pain management industry, who truly understand what it takes to overcome a live-changing injury. She is one of the most inspiring individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and I am eternally grateful that she has committed herself to helping people like me. Thank you, thank you, Sara Hauber. --Jennifer H.
Having suffered a debilitating injury that resulted in two severely herniated and ruptured discs in my lumbar spine, along with sciatic pain radiating down both legs, I had felt for nearly three years like I was in my 80’s, rather than in my 30’s. I tried every treatment available: chiropractic, acupuncture, cranio-sacral therapy, massage and deep tissue work, physical therapy, VAX-D decompression therapy – each of which provided minor temporary relief, but never for more than a day or two at a time. I obtained several series of steroid injections in my low back every other month for over two years, and those only lasted a few weeks at a time. Doctors prescribed every painkiller and muscle relaxer available, but I was unable to tolerate the side effects of any medications.
Furthermore, I did not want to become dependent on drugs to get by. After two and a half years of almost daily treatments and constant pain, I finally resorted to surgery, which provided only minimal improvement. I felt my life was over. I was so depressed from having endured such severe levels of pain for so long and having spent so much of my life in various treatments, I was desperate to make it all end.
Then, one day, I heard about Sara’s “Happy Hips and a Healthy Back” workshop at Namaskar Yoga in Chicago. I thought about it for days, but I feared that trying yet another avenue for relief would just be a disappointment like everything else. However, I decided at the last minute to go ahead and give it a chance, and it turned out to be the best decision I could have ever made.
The day of the workshop, I had been having a particularly rough day, and I limped into the yoga studio that day, hunched over, with a pain level of about 8 on a scale of 10. Within the first five minutes of the workshop, however, I was completely amazed when the pain dropped to an almost undetectable level! What a miracle! I was able to stand up straight, and even do strength and balance exercises that I never thought possible. I remember smiling in the middle of the workshop and thinking to myself, “I don’t know if I’ve smiled genuinely like this since before the accident happened [3 years before].”
I signed up for individual training to have Sara come to work with me in my home. During our sessions, she has taught me exercises tailored to my specific physical needs, which vary due to the complexities of the injuries. The exercises are different from any standard physical therapy I had been prescribed by several providers in the past. Sara’s approach has helped me learn to alleviate pain by targeting the muscle groups that become weakened due to overcompensation, as well as understanding how to interpret the signals my body sends me so that I instinctively know which exercises will be most effective at any given time. Now, I feel empowered to treat myself, rather than relying on doctors and alternative therapists to give me expensive and less effective treatments in their offices.
Sara’s cheerful and positive demeanor has served as a real source of motivation for me to approach each day with new hope. I wish there were more people like Sara in the pain management industry, who truly understand what it takes to overcome a live-changing injury. She is one of the most inspiring individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and I am eternally grateful that she has committed herself to helping people like me. Thank you, thank you, Sara Hauber. --Jennifer H.