Customer Reviews

Maggie's Back Book: Healing the Hurt in Your Lower Back

5 star:		(7)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

For most back pain suffering which you feel is the result of 'pulling' a muscle, this book can offer a wealth of rewarding advice. The same applies if you feel your discomfort has been brought about by either stress or muscle spasm. Your back pain may be nerve related or the result of, for example, a car accident in which case professional advice is called for. For the rest of us...usually those like me who are carrying more weight than recommended...this book will do you much good to help you over those times when doing anything with your back brings tears to your eyes. For example, when my back is killing me, the thought of leaning over to brush my teeth is gruesome. You think if you lean over you will just keep falling forward. Maggie's Back book offers priceless advice about a wide variety of issues. I have used it since its original publication (1976) and have just ordered three more replacements to use as loaners to friends in need. They are rarely returned but that's okay since I know they have been put to good use. Definitely five stars. John H.

If you are having back problems, read this book. I read an earlier edition a long time ago and have followed the recommended exercises ever since. The result: very few episodes of serious back pain in 16 years. Maggie was one of the first people to publicize the importance of exercise for dealing with and preventing back pain.

In 1970 (yes, I'm somewhat of an old fart) I suffered from an acute case of lower back pain. Luckily, Maggie's Back Book was then widely available. It didn't hurt that at that time Maggie also had her PBS show "Maggie and the Beautiful Machine", and thus was well known (certainly, here in Cambridge). I read it while in bed, on my back, and in pain. I decided to resist the doctor's recommendation for a spinal fusion operation. The injury healed over time, with the help of Maggie's good advice.

Nowadays, I have learned to feel and control my lower back's posture (as well as the rest of my spine). I've added basic Pilates to Maggie's recommended exercises. I'm extremely healthy, with strong and supple posture. I count my blessings when I shudderingly consider where I'd be today had I given in the the orthopedic surgeon's recommendation.

This is an amazingly comprehensive series of vignettes on living with and overcoming the spoiler that a bad back becomes.
Some of its beauty is in its simplicity which the drawings make very clear.
Every move one makes that causes back pain can be altered to reduce or remove the pain.It covers standing, walking, sitting, sleeping, sex and even constipation.

Now how thorough is that!

I have been to lots of back doctors and have gathered different opinions and beliefs and I must say that this book is the missing link to what the back really needs. In my view most back sufferers(including myself)have pain due to the lower back being compressed over time without ever having a way to decompress. No wonder I have had back pain since I was 16 due to lifting to much weight(military press). I am 48 at the time of this writing. But pain no more! Yahhhoooo!!! Now I can play endurance golf :)

I was facing a future of constant back pain when a friend of mine recommended I find, read and put into practice the principles of Maggie Lettvin. Maggie's book takes you step by step through defining the cause of your back pain and some gentle easy exercises to greatly reduce or even elimanate it. Then she adds several methods of strenthening your core muscles, improving your posture and ways of lifting and bending to prevent the pain from coming back. Simple line drawings by Ruth McCambridge illustrate the right and the wrong ways of doing things with a touch of whimsy. Taking Maggie's advice seriously and practicing the exercises as part of your everyday life will help you learn how to work with your body to heal it's self and stay healthy. Her motto should be "If it hurts you're not doing it right!" or "No pain is the gain!". I have been helped by this book, highly recommend it and have alredy passed a copy on to some friends.

A friend sent me Maggie's Back Book several years ago. It has been wonderful. The book is easy to read and the illustrations are very helpful. For the first time I gained some control over reducing my back pain. I have been recommending this book to friends.

No wonder this book is out of print, and just as well.
For an MIT teacher, Maggie shows little understanding of how the back works and gets injured. No wonder the Russians were all over us at the Olympics in the 1970's. I suppose this book could help somebody, but then again I heard eating cherries eliminates back pain too.
Maggie's one assumption for the book is the lower back arches too much and causes pain. This could be true for some people. But even so, Maggie talks about tightening the butt and abs to reduce the arch. Yes, these two muscle groups can remove the arch but tightening them to offset a tight psoas create more compression. Compression speeds disc degeneration, cuts off blood flow, etc, etc.
Would you like to know what the correct neutral pelvis position is? It's when the ASIS and pubic bone are in the same vertical plane. If the lower back looks over-arched in that position, it's because you have a tight psoas which pulls the lower back forward into an arched position. There are other causes, like rounded shoulders, a forward head position, or weak abs, but a tight psoas is the usual cause.
Maggie then goes to the opposite extreme and says you need to completely remove the curve in the lower back. This will cause just as much, if not more, injury than too much arch. How about the common sense that if the arch is too great, you reduce the arch, not completely remove it!
Maggie never once considers a tight psoas is the cause of the arch in the lower back and that you relax the psoas vs. tightening other muscles. Or how about training the lumbar multifidus (read Jim Johnson "The Multifidus Back Pain Solution"), which is the correct muscle group to arch the lower back, not the psoas.
But like a car wreck, I couldn't stop reading. Yes, it gets better. Like rounding the lower back and tucking the pelvis under when lifting. Do you see that in the Olympics? You'd blow out a disc lifting that way.
How about the sitting stretch when you stretch your arms and legs as far out in front of you as you can. Why? As Maggie says "Our bodies (by the looks of them) are built to be safest in action when dealt with as if we should be on all fours. We are only slowly evolving to two-leggedness. That seems to be the reason that 80 percent of us have, at some times in our lives, problems with our lower backs."
This woman is CLUELESS and following her advise would injure you more. But hey, IME most people don't want to do what it takes to get better anyhow.