Foundation Redefine Your Core Conquer Back Pain and Move with Confidence

I purchased the Foundation book to see if I could relieve my back pain where other methods hadn’t worked. Some background. I'm 52, active, and am in relatively good shape. (I also like long walks on the beach and drinking red wine. Oops, wrong web site.) Two years ago almost overnight I began having chronic lower back pain, which means I was in pain or discomfort 24/7. For over a year I tried cortisone shots, working with a massage therapist and sports chiropractor, going to 3 different medical doctors, etc. Nothing helped the problem. An MRI showed I'd degenerative discs. In total I spent several thousand dollars trying to recover including a new mattress, desk chair for posture, and other devices and gizmos. The upshot is this: I didn't have any success in relieving my lower back pain using non-exercise methods. (Although I did go to physical therapy, it was a huge disappointment. The exercises were so tame I didn't really get any benefit.) Several months ago I began researching exercises to cure back pain and came across Foundation. I did a fair amount of research on it including reading 80% of the Amazon reviews on the book. I'm going to repeat several things from those other reviews. The most important point is to make sure to watch online videos of Dr. Eric Goodman showing the Foundation exercises. You will get a much better idea of correct form. The video I found especially helpful was of Dr. Goodman showing Dr. Mercola how to do the basic exercises. One of the negatives of the book is it doesn't show alternative techniques if you're experiencing back pain for a particular exercise. The videos will occasionally show these alternates. The book takes you through a six week training regimen. The first two weeks introduces the basic exercises of Foundation and concentrates on fixing acute pain (reoccurring pain); the second two weeks is to fix chronic pain (pain all the time, which is what I have); and the last two weeks on exercises to strengthen the core and prevent future back pain. The basic idea of Foundation I believe is to both strengthen the back and stretch different muscle groups. I kept a diary of my progress and thought it might benefit people to know my results over time. On a side note, I should mention I was very dedicated to the program and went beyond what was suggested. I would do the Foundation workouts between 4 to 6 times a week and would hold the poses 30 seconds instead of the 15 to 20 as they state in the book. (After six weeks I started alternating Foundation every other day with core exercises, which mainly consisted of planks.) For the first three days of starting Foundation I concentrated on making sure I was doing the exercises with the proper form. That meant before each exercise I'd study what it said in the book, watch Youtube videos, and then perform the exercise. It took me about a week to get comfortable with the positions. Are the exercises easy to perform? I found them initially uncomfortable because they are poses I hadn't done before. You will definitely work up a sweat holding the positions. I don't think you need to be an athlete, but if you've never worked out, you might not like Foundation at first. Stick with it though. After only a little time you'll get comfortable with the exercises and the results are worth it. Even after two weeks, I still wasn't convinced I was making progress. I felt less stiff in my lower back but my pain level remained the same. It wasn't until the start of the third week that I really could tell that my back pain was slightly better. It wasn't much of an improvement but an improvement nonetheless. Before Foundation if I did yard work for 15 minutes, this translated into several days of a fairly bad back pain. By the fifth week of Foundation I could work in the yard 15 minutes and only have bad back pain the next day. This might sound minor or not worth using Foundation to some people, but to me it was a huge improvement. It also let me know that I was making significant progress using Foundation. By the fourth month I felt like I'd reached a plateau and wasn't noticing any more improvement. However, I was really doing well as compared to before I started doing Foundation. Now I'd wake up in the morning with the usual amount of back pain but by lunch feel fairly good. By evening I wouldn't really feel any back pain. This still wasn't where I wanted to be because I was looking for more dramatic improvement (to reset the clock to the months before my back pain even began). It was during this fourth month I decided to take a yoga class. I experienced slight back pain during the class, but when I woke up the next day I felt really good. I started incorporating yoga into my Foundation workouts and the results have been amazing. A lot of mornings I wake up without back any pain. This is a novelty to me. Morning back pain has been a part of my life for almost two years. I think yoga and Foundation are complimentary. I would suggest doing what I did: start with Foundation and if that doesn’t fix your problem, consider adding yoga to your routines. I don't think I could've even done yoga before I started Foundation. It would've been too painful, and I suspect I might've injured myself. Foundation gave me the basis to move on to yoga. Two final notes: First, if you're considering either the DVD or the book on Foundation, definitely get the book. Maybe get the DVD later for additional exercises, but from a beginners standpoint the book is much better. I can't stress this enough. Second, consider adding the bird dog exercise into your routine with progressively higher ankle weights. The book The Multifidus Back Pain Solution book by Jim Johnson makes a strong case that this exercise can be one of the best to fix lower back pain. To conclude, I highly recommend Foundation to anybody experiencing lower back pain. Read more

Up until Memorial Day this year, I was playing soccer and refereeing at age 60. But then I torqued my back doing yardwork. I didn't have sciatica, but I could no longer run, bend over, get out of bed, and I could barely use the toilet in the morning. I tried celebrex, mobic, PT, chiro, yoga, massage, and personal training to change how I walked/ran. My pain level remained at around a 7. I finally got an MRI, which indicated advanced disk degeneration and a small disk bulge. Then I read that San Jose Earthquakes player Ramiro Corrales had spinal cortisone shots and followed the Foundation exercises throughout the season. So 6 weeks ago, I started the exercises. My back was so weak, and I had to go so slowly, that one set of the basic 5 exercises took me 45 minutes. I could only hold the poses for a few seconds each. I had some immediate pain relief that first day, so I kept at it, building up to 20" poses. Each day my back improved. After 2 weeks, I realized I was supposed to do 3 sets of the basic exercises, so I increased my workout. Then I moved to the intermediate exercises, and now I am doing the advanced workout. My back is now strong enough, that if I trip, or if someone bumps into me or vice versa, I no longer get stabbing pain running up my spine. My pain dropped to a 3-4. I am pretty sure that the Foundation exercises opened my spinal joints and allowed blood into the area to help reduce the inflammation. I have also found that I need to do them almost every day. Do you need to be an athlete to do these exercises? No, but you need to develop an athlete's resolve to keep at them. Remember, I was so weak I could barely do them in the beginning, so I had fallen out of an athletic state and had even become pre-diabetic. Am I cured? No. Can I go back to soccer yet? No. Yesterday I got spinal cortisone shots in the hopes that they will eliminate the remaining inflammation in my facet joints. I also read Esther Gokhale's book and am working on my posture so that I do not sit or stand in hunched or slouched positions, and I try to walk with an "inner corset". For the first time in 6 months, I am hopeful that I may be able to run again. I don't think the shots alone will do the trick. I think these Foundation exercises will be crucial to my continuing recovery. Wish me luck! And good luck to you in finding a solution for your pain as well! - - - - - UPDATE AUG-5-2012. - - - - - I made about a 90% recovery, but it wasn't directly from either book. The cortisone shots reduced my pain to a level of 1-2, which enabled me to start working with a personal trainer. I worked out with an exceptionally knowledgable trainer at the Equinox gym in Palo Alto. Over 3.5 months, we developed my core and gluteal muscles. I truly developed the inner corset that Gokhale talks about, but it was through vigorous weight training. I lost 5 lbs of fat and gained 5 lbs of muscle, and my body fat went from 21% to 16%. My posture is now erect, and I also focus on Using my glutes (the largest muscle in the body) to walk and lift, instead of my back. This plus the tight abdomen reduced my back pain to almost zero, and the trainer also showed me how to break down tightness in the hip flexors, psoas, piriformis, glute and leg muscles. It turns out that much of my low back pain nowadays comes from tightness of the first two muscles, which I can break down by rolling on a softball and using the body back buddy. So while this book got me on the road to recovery, the real solution was to work with an expert to strengthen my whole body and change some body mechanics. Working with my trainer was like physical therapy on steroids. One downside of weight training though, is that it can never stop. I work out on my own now, but If I go 4 days without weight training, my core goes flaccid and my back pain returns. So My back is a chronic problem and will always be a work in progress. But at least I returned to playing and refereeing in July. And then I tore my meniscus, of course. Read more