If he could, the legend of the great almighty Walter Thomas will die.

I agree. The heat and humidity helps to cause a lot of the physical problems for guys during camp. Its tough to stay hydrated which increase the risk for injury.

Agreed. Yoga is awesome. I did it for years. Aftere suffering chronic back pain for years I tried yoga and have never had a back problem since. It limbers your body and tones muscle, and has many other prevenitive injury benifits.

Sounds good Dude. If it works lets do it! Maybe I should try it myself...

I was diagnosed with a genetic condition which causes my immune system to attack the cells in my spinal intervertebral discs. This causes a gradual degradation of the mobility of my spine and continuous pain. While the medication I'm taking slows down the process - it cannot be stopped and one day (in the distant future I hope) the degradation will reach a point at which the situation will "freeze" and my spine gets "locked" in to whatever condition it's at that moment.

I have a tedious stretching and muscle fitness routine I do every single day, which takes me about an hour and 15 minutes. This routine is based on Pilates because of its effectiveness to increase core muscle strength without creating a lot of strain on the said muscles. With this daily routine I can fight the degradation and preserve my spinal mobility... and with any luck my spine will "lock up" in a fairly mobile state.

The routine doesn't help with the pain and I don't take any pain medicine, so the pain is still there with me every day. But it has helped my spinal mobility and movement a great deal and, therefore, it has made an immense impact on my attitude towards the condition and life itself.

Sorry to hear that... hope everything works out well for you.

Thanks, but it's all fine. ;-)

Anyone can learn to live with some pain and discomfort... and since my condition is hereditary - as in I couldn't have done anything to prevent it - the Finnish government pays for all the meds and care I need or will need, so it's not even financially burdening as some conditions can be.

I actually consider myself lucky to only be going through something like this 'cos my girlfriend's two cousins have a type of muscular dystrophy - can't remember which specifically - and man that's one hard thing to develop all of a sudden in your life... to lose all your muscle control and be forced into an electric wheelchair for the rest of your life... that's what I call bad! :-(

ya have to play through the pain

I'm backing you up on this one. WTF maybe Sean needs to look into this .