Vinh Pham is a licensed physical therapist and co-founder of myodetox, a movement health clinic with more than a dozen locations in Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver. He is also the author of Sit straight: Future-proof your body against chronic pain with 12 simple moveswhich provides stretching and movement routines to help relieve the pain and discomfort that comes from sitting and slouching.
Pham’s client list includes some of the best athletes and entertainers in the world. During the early stages of his career, he was amazed at the number of patients who came to him when they were already in pain due to tight muscles and misaligned joints. He began to rethink approach to a healthier body for being proactive than reactive.
Her approach to the spine is dedicated to movement and being hyper-aware of the body. There are several exercises to maintain a healthy spine. Everything from diet to deadlifting can play a role. Pham believes that what is often missing in people’s lives is the dedicated mobility of the spine in combination with strength. No slouch in the gym, she shared her gym essentials with Muscle and Fitness and provided some tips on how to prepare your spine for the future.
- Get up and move, as often as possible: During COVID, people sat up to 15 hours a day. When you really think about it, the real question you should be asking yourself is “how often did I actually get up, go for walks, exercise, and do anything other than sit?” The spine may be robust, but it craves movement. It is recommended to get up every 30 minutes. Whether it’s time spent on a short walk, a stretch, or mobility moves, be sure to let her know to get up as often as possible. At the end of the day, movement is what your spine needs most.
- Try to remove anything that impedes your spine’s ability to move well: For some, this may mean making sure to control your weight. After all, our spinal health will be affected by our weight. Naturally, you should pay attention to what you eat and how much you sleep. Truth be told, this should be discussed with your doctor and dietician, but our food intake and sleep will affect our weight and ultimately affect our spine.
- Embrace the unknown with your spinal mobility: Don’t be afraid to expose your spine to novel movements, especially if you sit a lot for work and play. Here are a couple of exercises that I have many of my patients do regularly, in addition to their exercise routines: GEARS: Think of this exercise as “flossing” and “brushing” your spine. Many of us will do a variation of these moves naturally, especially if we’ve been sitting down all day.3D T-Column Rotation: This exercise focuses on multiple planes of movement of the thoracic and lumbar spine.
At the end of the day, life is full of twists, turns, and endless combinations of movement—you need to do as many movement variations as you can for your spine if you want to keep it healthy.
- Strengthen your spine in multiple planes of movement: This one may seem counterintuitive to traditional compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses. Although these movements are amazing, much of our lives are spent in a plane of movement. We twist our spine to tie our shoes, pick up our children, or keep our garden outside. To get an idea of what I mean, see this post dedicated to deadlift variations. Of course, you want to be respectful of column loading. I’m not saying add a twist to your heaviest deadlift. I’m saying that your backbone is robust and can handle any variation of load that you will encounter in life. Try a weight that allows you to be mobile, with some resistance. If it means 10 pounds, so be it.
- Recovery, recovery, recovery: All professional athletes, including the ones I work with, focus on recovery to optimize their body. It’s one thing to train mobility and strength, but it’s another to address areas of the body that can contribute to movement dysfunction and potential injury. You want to prepare your body for the future against injuries. This can be as simple as a foam routine that you do before Y after exercises or hot/cold baths. But my number one option is manual therapy. Whether they are myofascial techniques, joint mobilizations or a combination of both. Adding manual therapy to your recovery, especially in areas associated with your spine, will protect you from future injury. My team at Myodetox are true experts in this conceptual framework of combining movement and manual therapy to optimize the body.
You can follow Vinh for more tips and moves at @vinnierehab.
