Welcome to the third installment of our Spinal Hygiene series. 

Today we’re talking about your morning routine and a move called the “Cat Cow Movement”. Morning can be a very painful time of the day when you have discogenic pain. The reason for this is your spine swells while you’re sleeping. As you are laying down one your back, fluid flows into the spine to bring nutrition to the disc. By the way, this also explains why you’re taller in the morning than you are at the end of the day.

To make those first movements of your day as pain free as possible, we need to prime your spine for movement. We’re going to use a cat cow movement to do that. Cat cow is a great way to move the joints without pain and it’s going to create this pumping effect that is going to remove the excess fluid from your spine. Doing this will make getting out of bed a little less uncomfortable. 

The Movement

On all fours, press back up to the ceiling… it doesn’t matter how far up you go, just go up as high as you comfortably can. Then, just go back down into an extended position. Repeat this series of movements 8 to 12 times.

Once your spine loosens up a bit, you can now get off the bed or table. From this all fours position, move to the edge of the bed and bring one leg off to the floor. 

Bringing it all together

Drawing on the lesson from video 1 in this series, keep your spine in neutral and use a hip hinge to bring yourself up. To do this, brace with your spine and walk your hands in toward your knees. This puts the work into the hips and hands, protecting your low back. 

Once you’re in the upright position, just slide off the bed and stand up to move about your morning. As you get ready for the day, continue incorporating the hip hinge maneuver we talked about in part 1.

You can watch the full video blog below or on our YouTube channel!