Back Posture Correctors

Beginning in the mid-1980s and through the 1990’s I lead a project to understand and develop proper training and treatment for the spinal column. Of particular interest was the lower back.

Others involved included: Jennifer Stone, ATC 24 years Athletic Trainer Director, United States Olympic Center, Colorado Springs. Bob Beeten, ATC 26 years director of the United States Olympic Sports Medicine and Research Center, Colorado Springs. Dick Smith, Olympic Weightlifting Coach, York Barbell, York Pennsylvania; Ron O’Neil, ATC Director New England Patriots Football team (26 years in NFL as Athletic Trainer).

Jennifer Stone, Manager, Clinical Services, Division of Sports Medicine, U.S. Olympic Committee for three Olympic Training Centers based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was chosen to direct research at the Olympic level of athletic talent representing over 40 different sports. She had personally trained hundreds of athletic trainers wanting to intern for the Olympic and Pan Am games, was interested in the training and treatment of the abdominal and musculoskeletal complex. She continued to work with me (Dr. Scherger) for 17 years.

It was common knowledge in professional football that the players with the big lower back curved spine were the best athletes. The ones that possessed the big curves were the quickest, had the most endurance and flexibility and hit the hardest. However, as the season progressed and players accumulated trauma, backs began to lose the curve and become stiffer and weaker.

Also, as the season progressed, the players’ lower backs would hurt more, and they would experience more readily apparent medical conditions. These typically included diagnoses such as stenosis, bulged or other disc conditions, and the vertebra and/or their discs moving out of place to pinch the spinal cord or nerves exiting the spine.

The vertebrae moving out of place or partially dislocating typically always accompany the above conditions. Professional football’s world of hard reality called for training that would overcome the accumulated trauma to enhance and preserve the global curve and restore and preserve the segmental posture of the individual vertebral joints, thereby correcting the bulged disc, pinched nerve, or stenosis problems.

By 2000, the sit-up and pelvic tilt exercises and a unique exercise device, the Power Cushion, were developed and were being used with success in the Patriots medical training room. The Sit-up exercise enhanced, restored, and preserved the global and segmental posture and the pelvic tilt segmental posture.

By 2002, the exercises were moved to the weight training room for strengthening and conditioning. The Patriots continued to use the exercises and Power Cushion through the 2008 season.

They were the only ones besides the *Giants in the NFL that were aware of the training and the only ones that employed it.

Our vision of fielding a superior winning football player by producing a better global and segmental posture as the season progressed was a reality. While the other teams were getting worse as the season progressed, the Patriots and Giants appeared to dominate all the other teams in the NFL, with players being physically stronger.

All our findings were consolidated into two home study courses and submitted to the National Strength and Conditioning Association for peer review for academic correctness.

The courses contained all our relevant findings. For instance, why did the athlete with the proper lower back curve possess the greatest power, why did they run faster, jump higher, and have more endurance? Answers were demonstrated in musculoskeletal leverage terms and proofs, for instance, of the human in upright posture producing “energy expenditure” and “effective momentum.”

In 2003 the course work, after over one year of open peer review, finally received acceptance by the NSCA. It took that long because the courses contained technology the world had never seen, and all theories were accepted after mathematical proofs were demonstrated.

After over one year of open peer review by professionals representing the fields of physics, engineering, biomechanics, and athletic training, as well as physical training specialists for both the Army and the Olympics for scientific accuracy, the material was accepted. In addition, it became certified educational material by the National Strength and Conditioning Association.

After Bob Beeten retired from the US Olympic Sports Medicine and Research Center he used the Power Cushion training at the high school level.

Bob Beeton’s strengthening program as assistant high school track and field coach included 4 minutes every turnout working over the Power Cushion.

(*Marcus Paul, a strength coach previously with the Patriots, left them and took the power training with him to the Giants team). Both Mike Woicik from the Patriots, and the late Marcus Paul, took the Power Cushion to the Dallas Cowboys, but lacked the leverage from Dr. Scherger's weight stack machine.