美国国家公共电台 NPR Lost Art Of Bending Over: How Other Cultures Spare Their Spines

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Here's something people do every day that many of us apparently¹ do wrong - bending over, you know, to pick things up or put things down or even just to sit down. Now, a group of scientists who study bending say Americans are doing it in a way that may make back pain more common. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff reports.

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE²: We're going to start off with an experiment. Our guide is Jean Couch who's been helping³ people in Palo Alto, Calif., get out of back pain for 25 years. She says stand up.

JEAN COUCH: Put your hands on your waist.

DOUCLEFF: Now imagine something on the ground in front of you, like a feather.

COUCH: If I said pick up a feather, usually everybody the first thing they move is their head.

DOUCLEFF: And you look down.

COUCH: Yeah.

DOUCLEFF: That little look down is already making you bend in the wrong way - at the waist.

COUCH: And right away, they've begun to bend the spine⁴.

DOUCLEFF: Oh, yeah, my stomach crunched⁵.

COUCH: Yeah.

DOUCLEFF: Which makes our backs curve into a C shape. Like...

COUCH: Really folded cashews.

DOUCLEFF: Cashews. In other words, when we bend, we kind of look like nuts - cashew nuts. Seriously, though, in many parts of the world, people don't look this way when they bend. Instead, you see something very different. I first noticed it back in 2014 while covering the Ebola outbreak. I was in eastern Liberia, and women working in their gardens were bending over in a way I had never seen before. Their backs were perfectly⁶ flat, and they weren't squatting⁷ with a vertical⁸ back. No, their backs were horizontal, parallel to the ground. Their backs looked like tables. I started noticing this type of bending in many rural places - women planting rice in Madagascar, men picking up mangoes in Nepal. The bending seemed to be everywhere except here.

STUART MCGILL: The anthropologists have noted⁹ exactly what you're saying for years.

DOUCLEFF: That's Stuart McGill at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He studies the biomechanics of the spine and says people make this table with their back because they're doing a special type of bending called...

MCGILL: Hip¹⁰ hinge.

DOUCLEFF: Hip hinge.

MCGILL: Focusing more of the motion around the hip joint¹¹.

DOUCLEFF: Do you think that this is more optimal¹² than the way we bend over?

MCGILL: Oh, absolutely.

DOUCLEFF: McGill says when people been with the C shape in their back like we do, they're bending their spine.

MCGILL: That puts more stress on the spinal¹³ discs.

DOUCLEFF: Those little rings of collagen between the vertebrae. McGill says discs aren't the strongest part of our body. They're kind of like a delicately woven fabric¹⁴.

MCGILL: If you took a cloth and you kept bending it and stressing it over and over again, the fibers¹⁵ of the weave of the cloth start to loosen up and delaminate.

DOUCLEFF: And eventually over time, this fabric can fray¹⁶. That puts you at risk of slipping a disc. But when you hip hinge, or make the table with your back, your spine stays straight, and the bending occurs at your hip joint, which is the king of motion.

MCGILL: The hips¹⁷ are ball-and-socket joints¹⁸. They are designed to have maximum movement, lots of muscle force, et cetera.

DOUCLEFF: In other words, your boots may be made for walking, but your hips are made for bending. But most of us aren't using them that way.

MCGILL: So this wisdom of movement really has been lost in our society.

DOUCLEFF: Lost but not totally forgotten. There are a few places where you still see a lot of hip hinging today. Weightlifters use it when they do what's called a deadlift. And...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Evans powering his way forward.

DOUCLEFF: Yep, football.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Touchdown.

DOUCLEFF: Players kneel at the line of scrimmage with beautiful hip hinging. D.J. Kennedy is a spine specialist at Stanford University and a former weightlifter. He says doctors don't know enough about hip hinging to say whether or not it will prevent back pain or injuries.

D J KENNEDY: We don't have these randomized trials where we put people lifting things hundreds of times and see how their body responds to it. But I think it intuitively makes sense from how the spine functions.

DOUCLEFF: And so do you hip hinge?

KENNEDY: I try. When I lift weights, I'm very mindful of my form. So I try very hard to do it.

DOUCLEFF: Personally, for me, it took a few months to learn how to hip hinge, but once I got the hang of it, I'm never going back to looking like a cashew. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SUN GLITTERS' "WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR")

INSKEEP: To learn how to hip hinge, go online to NPR's health blog, Shots.

(SOUNDBITE OF SUN GLITTERS' "WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR")

1 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

5 crunched   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• Our feet crunched on the frozen snow. 我们的脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩在冻雪上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. 他咬紧骨头，使劲地嚼。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 squatting   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
• They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

9 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

10 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

11 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

12 optimal   

adj.最适宜的；最理想的；最令人满意的

参考例句：

• What is the optimal mix of private and public property rights in natural resources?私人和国家的自然资源产权的最适宜的组合是什么？
• Optimal path planning is a key link for the sailing contest.帆船最优行驶路径规划是帆船比赛取胜的关键环节。

13 spinal   

adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的

参考例句：

• After three days in Japan,the spinal column becomes extraordinarily flexible.在日本三天，就已经使脊椎骨变得富有弹性了。
• Your spinal column is made up of 24 movable vertebrae.你的脊柱由24个活动的脊椎骨构成。

14 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

15 fibers   

光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质

参考例句：

• Thesolution of collagen-PVA was wet spined with the sodium sulfate as coagulant and collagen-PVA composite fibers were prepared. 在此基础上，以硫酸钠为凝固剂，对胶原-PVA共混溶液进行湿法纺丝，制备了胶原-PVA复合纤维。
• Sympathetic fibers are distributed to all regions of the heart. 交感神经纤维分布于心脏的所有部分。

16 fray   

v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗

参考例句：

• Why should you get involved in their fray?你为什么要介入他们的争吵呢？
• Tempers began to fray in the hot weather.大热天脾气烦燥。

17 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 joints   

接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。