back pain - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T06:28:18Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/back+painHealth and Harmony: Power stretching relaxes you, aids other exerciseshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/health-and-harmony-power-stretching-relaxes-you-aids-other-exerci2016-11-30T15:18:42.000Z2016-11-30T15:18:42.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960680889,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960680889,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960680889?profile=original" /></a><em>Liz Bernstein, a coach at the Power Stretch Studios’ Delray Beach location,</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>stretches Megan Bell Taylor, the studio owner. The studio opened in November.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Lona O'Connor</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"> Lee Taylor got his first power stretching session in New Jersey in May. He was running out of options for pain relief from spinal stenosis and he was willing to try anything that might ward off surgery.<br /> “I did it for an hour with one of the stretch coaches and absolutely loved it,” said Taylor, a commodities broker. “I signed up for a 10-pack of sessions. That was mid-May. By mid-June, I was talking to Kika about opening a studio in Florida.”<br /> Kika DuBose, an actor and dancer, had launched three Power Stretch studios in New York and New Jersey, where power stretching coaches use her “Kika method” of stretching tight muscles while clients relax.<br /> Taylor and DuBose worked out an agreement. Taylor and his wife, Megan Bell Taylor, scouted locations in Delray Beach, where they had visited friends. <br /> In August, a few blocks north of Atlantic Avenue, they discovered a mint-green house with a separate small building in the back. They moved into the house and outfitted the studio with a big exercise mat and large exercise balls.<br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960681456,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960681456,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" width="97" alt="7960681456?profile=original" /></a> “I’m so optimistic about power stretching that I made my agreement for the entire state of Florida,” Taylor said. “Meg saw the excitement in my eyes when I told her — she’s seen how much pain I’ve gone through — and she was ready.”<br /> “Usually, he starts something and then after a couple of weeks he doesn’t want to do it anymore,” said Megan, who runs the newly opened Power Stretch studio in downtown Delray Beach. “He really took to this 100 percent.”<br /> She hired and trained four stretching coaches and opened the Power Stretch studio in November.<br /> The target demographic for power stretching is men, who tend to be tighter than women. Both sexes often relegate stretching to a few minutes before or after other forms of exercise, said Megan Bell Taylor.<br /> Power stretching makes mindful stretching a central activity that improves other forms of exercise and gives an immediate sensation of relaxation.<br /> Unlike conventional massage, power stretching does not occur on a table. The client sits on a spongy floor mat and the stretching coach measures how close the client can come to touching his toes while in a seated position. Then the coach places the client in a series of positions and helps him stretch neck, chest, hips and extremities. All the client has to do is breathe deeply in and out as instructed. Sessions are 45 or 60 minutes long.<br /> “It was like night and day,” said Lee Taylor, who first went to the doctor after losing some feeling in his feet three years ago. “I felt taller and more flexible. My joints weren’t cracking.” Before he began stretching, his golf swing was getting shorter and he was often in too much low- and mid-back pain to walk for 18 holes. After power stretching twice a week with a coach, he recently golfed three times in three days.<br /> Chris Gallucci, 31, a personal trainer and body builder, became a coach for power stretching as a part-time job opportunity. He has three bulging vertebral disks and because of his age hopes to put off surgery as long as possible. He had been getting massaged once a week, but “the pain comes back right away,” said Gallucci, who lives in Lantana.<br /> After a few sessions of power stretching, he got relief from his back pain.<br /> “He looked completely different, his chest was open, he was much more relaxed,” recalled fellow coach Liz Bernstein. Gallucci and his girlfriend, also a personal trainer, now power stretch each other at home.<br /> When he started power stretching, Gallucci was less flexible than one of his clients, a 70-year-old. And now?<br /> “I’m walking taller, my posture is better. It helped my back and hamstrings, big time. And I can put my socks on. Before, I couldn’t even put my socks on.”<br /> Lee and Megan Taylor are considering opening as many as five future locations in Palm Beach and Broward counties, perhaps in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach. They are also considering demonstration sessions at golf clubs, as DuBose has done in the New York-New Jersey area.<br /> “Delray is a fantastic place for us,” said Taylor. “You see a ton of people, older, younger, active, in great shape. We’ve made an investment in ourselves and in our future.”<br /> The Power Stretch studio is at 334 NE First Ave., Delray Beach. Phone 562-5321. An introductory 45-minute session is $45. Normally, sessions are $80 for 45 minutes or $90 for 60 minutes. Package rates are available, too. For more information, visitpowerstretchstudios.com/delray-beach-fl/<strong><br /><br /></strong><em>Lona O’Connor has a lifelong interest in health and healthy living. Send column ideas to Lona13@bellsouth.net.</em></p></div>Home, Health and Harmony: A mantra of motionhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/home-health-and-harmony-a-mantra-of-motion2015-04-29T16:58:05.000Z2015-04-29T16:58:05.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-6" style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Yoga helps keep folks moving, despite injuries, growing old</span></p>
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<p style="text-align:center;"><em><span class="font-size-6" style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568481,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568481,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960568481?profile=original" /></a></span></em><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><em>Murray Rubin (front) and others take a chair yoga class taught by Stephanie Streff at Yoga Sol in Delray Beach.</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><em>Rubin says he noticed a difference in his back pain after only one class. </em><br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568656,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568656,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960568656?profile=original" /></a><em>Streff works with Rachel Neuswanger, who says yoga ‘has kept me out of a wheelchair.’</em><br /><strong> </strong><br /><strong>Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><strong>By Lona O’Connor <br /><br /></strong> Back when he was a pharmacist, standing on his feet all day, Murray Rubin had such back pain that he sometimes had to lie on the floor to get any relief. More recently, the old pain flared up and his orthopedist advised him to go to a neurologist.<br /> “I had a tremendous amount of back pain. It was bone against bone,” said Rubin, 81, of Delray Beach. “I could barely get out of bed. The next thing for me was surgery.” He didn’t need to keep that appointment. His granddaughter urged him to try yoga. He’s smiling and his doctor is scratching his head, mystified but pleased. “He said he never would have sent me to a yoga class, but to keep on doing whatever I’m doing,” said Rubin.<br /> What he is doing is two yoga classes, both aimed at relieving pain, loosening joints and addressing other ailments brought on by time and injuries. Yoga Sol, in Delray Beach, offers a range of classes for students of all types, from athletic to elderly. The two classes Rubin takes are called “Ageless” and “Gentle Chair.”<br /> “I felt relief from the first class,” said Rubin.</span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568681,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568681,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960568681?profile=original" /></a></span><em><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;">Yoga students use pillows and other props to master poses and improve posture.</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568269,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960568269,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960568269?profile=original" /></a></span></em><em><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;">Abe Sokol, 93, and Murray Rubin, 81, do gentle chair yoga. Sokol says the class has helped his golf game.</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;">Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><span class="font-size-2" style="font-family:'times new roman', times;"><br /> The classes are led by Stephanie Streff, who has been trained in the Iyengar method of yoga, which is known for at least two features that might assist someone with physical limitations: a painstaking attention to correcting posture problems, and the use of wooden blocks, straps, blankets and, yes, chairs, to allow almost anybody to manage the basic yoga poses.<br /> B.K.S. Iyengar, who began yoga as a sickly child in India, practiced and taught into old age. He died in 2014 at the age of 95.<br /> True to her Iyengar training, Streff circles the room, adjusting the position of each student’s arms or feet until she is satisfied that they are in alignment.<br /> She asks students if they are feeling pain or discomfort. Nothing seems to escape her scrutiny. She adds a blanket under Rubin’s feet.<br /> “She gives excellent instruction, and she individualizes the program,” said Rubin. “But she also makes it fun.” “Best ever,” Streff tells Rubin, giving him a high-five after he completes a pose.<br /> He beams.<br /> Also in the chair class are Abe Sokol, 93, of Delray Beach, who says that yoga has helped his golf game, and his neighbor Elaine Grosoff, who fits yoga in with her tai chi classes, volunteering and mahjong games.<br /> Rachel Neuswanger of Boynton Beach, who uses a cane to walk, practices yoga in class to help with a curvature of the spine, arthritis and a childhood injury. She also practices at home every day.<br /> “It has kept me out of a wheelchair,” said Neuswanger, who brought a snowbird friend to class. There are hundreds of yoga poses, many of which can be adapted to aging or injured bodies. “We don’t work slower, we work smaller,” said Streff.<br /> “We break up the poses into bits and pieces. And I try to add something new every time. It’s about feeling successful."<br /><br /> <em>For information, call Yoga Sol at 272-8699 or visit yogasol.com.</em><br /><em> Ageless yoga classes are also offered at Pura Vida Yoga in Boca Raton. Call 322-5711 or visit puravidayogaboca.com.</em> <strong><br /><br /></strong></span></p></div>