Posted 30 January 2008 - 10:02 PM
To get technical, simply lying down to go to sleep deloads the spine. Of course, to decompress it, some say you must do more than simply deload it, by putting it into traction to stretch out tense muscles, which is what this page describes.
The hand thing is a good start, but to apply true traction, your feet need to be off the ground. If they're touching the ground they're taking weight that could be on your arms, and are weight that is not pulling on your spine. Obviously you move up to it. For any who do the 'dip' exercise, it's basically that. I did it on my chair for a couple seconds just now. Only do it on a strong chair, if the arms break it sucks.
I really don't get why with the lat pulldown/chin bar advice they say your feet should still be on the ground taking 10% of the load. What's the point? Why not go all the way? If some people do chins with dip belts with a lot of weight, surely it is bearable with adaptation over time. I mean, with the bar in my door I keep my feet on the ground sometimes but that's just because it feels easier on my hands/arms and it's easier to relax and do it for longer periods, is that mayb why they say to do it?
