Your spinal column is possibly the most vital structure in your body, therefore it is important to look after it. Your backbone gets voluminous compression from day-to-day activities, gravity and general life. In addition, the supplementary compression you give it with strength training and you better start decompressing it.

Backbone health is really important, and I'm willing to bet that nearly everyone of you have back trouble presently. I myself hurt my lower back more or less a year ago, and this is one of the methods I utilized to regain it to 99% (yet occasionally gets tight or sore). I'll do a comprehensive post on why you have back trouble and how to correct it soon. Meanwhile, read this without further ado.

What you want to do is follow a trouble-free decompression technique that helps to keep your backbone strong and mobile by helping it decompress to its original length.

Here's everything you need to know

How To Do Spine Decompressions

You'll need a pull-up bar to do your decompressions. After you have that piece of equipment, there's two ways to go about this:

1. Get Gravity Boots: This is the method that I use. These are boots that you strap onto your ankles and have hooks on them so you can hang upside down from your pullup bar safely and allow your spine to decompress. I use Teeter Hang Ups Gravity Boots. An added bonus is that with these boots I can do inverted sit ups for my abs and other cool "upside down" exercises.

2. Hang With Your Hands: This is trouble-free. Just hang from your pull-up bar and ease all muscles-hold it for as long as possible. The longer you hang the better shoot for 5 minutes at best and build up from there. You probably can't hang that long, so here's

How To Hang Longer With Your Hands

The longer you hang the better, but your grip will probably give out. While I would never recommend using lifting straps for your regular lifting, I recommend them for decompressions because it will allow you to hang on longer. Choose nylon-type lifting straps or lifting hook straps because they're more durable.

How To Loosen Your Muscles So Your Spinal Column Decompresses

Your muscles need to be relaxed in order for your spine to decompress (staying tight won't help). Here's what to do whether you're using the gravity boots method or the hanging from your hands method:

* Hang off the pull-up bar

* Take a deep breath and keep hold of it

* Tighten up your whole body (focus on abs, glutes and make fists)

* Hold your entire body stiff for 5 seconds

* Let it all out, your breath and all the tension. Relax

When you do this you'll have a feeling your whole body relaxing and you'll probably "drop" down a little. You'll most likely sense your back decompressing, remarkably the first few times.

How You Regular Have To Decompress

Daily is best. I must admit, I don't do it every day consistently. But you really should try to do it as much as possible. If you get bored hanging upside down you can read a book or something. It's best to do these right after your strength training sessions, right after your cooldown-think of it as a part of your cooldown.