Treat Your Own Back 9th Ed (802-9) by Robin McKenzie

Robin McKenzie has devoted over 30 years developing a system of examination and treatment of mechanical neck and back pain that is recognized internationally and taught to thousands of clinicians worldwide. Robin McKenzie is an Honorary Life Member of the APTA.

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
This book talks a lot about posture and how it can affect your back. Posture suggestions follow. The exercises recommended for most cases of back pain involve a person bending their spine backwards. These are done in the standing and on-your-stomach positions. One thing I did notice about this back pain book is that it contains no exercises to strengthen your back- which I think is strange as it is well documented in the back literature that people with back pain have smaller than normal back muscles (Parkkola 1993 and Daneels 2000) when examined with CT scans and MRI's as well as weaker than normal back muscles (Smidt 1983 and Mayer 1985 and Mayer 1989 and Roy 1989 and Cassisi 1993). On this basis, I felt that this book was overlooking this important point and should probably address it with at least one strengthening exercise. Having said that, I think this book will be most helpful for people with back pain that radiates into one or both legs due to a disc problem. People with spinal stenosis or a slippage of one vertebrae over the other (called a spondylolisthesis) will want to be careful with the backward bending motion as this might actually aggravate their pain. Another fix-it-yourself book readers might want to check out is Treat Your Own Spinal Stenosis.