I have had a sometimes temperamental lower back, with the occasional knot or spasm as far back as 1990. Fortunately it's all muscle tightness, no spine or nerve issues.Way to get out there! I've had a very sore lower back condition for two weeks and have not yet begun my ski season. It's troubling because I did not do anything excessively strenuous to deserve itOld age I guess? But it's slowly improving and I hope to ski a few times locally in the East before heading to Utah in about a month.
In 1999 I got maybe 3 feet of air into powder while snowcat skiing at Revelstoke, resulting in a back spasm even though I did not fall. This prompted me to visit a chiropractor whenever I had such incidents over the next decade.
After a similar though less severe incident at Chatter Creek in 2009, a fellow skier recommended the Egoscue method. I signed up for their 8 visit package for $1,400. The first visit was a posture evaluation. They then give you a customized list of posture.stretching exercises, revised each visit. Most people do the visits every week but I spaced mine out over the course of a year. I'd call it "preventive chiropractic" and I will occasionally do a few of those exercises when my back starts feeling not quite right. This reduces both frequency and severity of back spasms.
Retirement has also been a positive. When Liz moved in with me in 2013 she had recently tried aerial yoga and she found a then up and coming instructor in Studio City. As some of Kimberely's first customers we got an attractive rate and would go once a week when we were home. Liz had to stop in late 2015 when her knee (the one replaced last year) started to restrict her range of motion. I continued aerial yoga through the end of 2019.
The Studio City facility closed with COVID and Kimberely had two kids in the same general time frame. Up Flying Yoga resumed in 2021 out of her less convenient backyard in Sherman Oaks at triple the price I had been paying in Studio City. So I'm now doing conventional yoga in Altadena twice a week on the free Silver Sneakers 24 Hour Fitness membership I get with Medicare. Long story short, I think yoga is a very good idea for senior skiers.
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