Helga - furniture for your back
February 11, 2011
These pictures are of the July10 working prototype
Helga Ready for Work
Helga - a firm mistress
Helga's Start
Doug Bean made the first Helga prototype one cold winter above Santa Cruz, CA in 1985 to provide a way to lie down and use gravity to loosen up the fascia surrounding the back. The third prototype is now in service and production models and plans will be available one day soon now.
Helga is a furniture appliance designed to help relieve your stiff and sore back and lower neck . The basic model is simply constructed from 2X4 material. You can certainly make your own, for $15-25, depending on wood type, finish and hardware. Basic plans from us, with a complete cutting list and assembly directions, will be $5, in digital or snail mail form. Full size Plan drawings and layout template for $10. No machinery, special diet (though this is an important topic and will be later be addressed here), or other exercise program is needed to use Helga and immediately help your back(side) issues ranging from too tight Periformis muscles within the hip saddle - with aching hip and/or lower back stiffness; to aching or knotted shoulder/clavicle musculature, to contracted, stuck fascia within the rear of the rib cage.
Design Background
As Ida Rolf discovered years ago, aligning our bodies with gravity improves posture and eases the fatigue of our skeletal/fascia/muscular structure as we go through our daily routines. For many of us this includes hours of standing or, worse, sitting at desks, with arms outstretched to a machine or keyboard. Or perhaps walking or running with poor posture for a variety of reasons. Generally little or no attention is paid to the tension induced and stored in backs of our calves, thighs and spinal fascia.
The Rolfing® Structural Integration website at www.rolf.org describes their method as a form of bodywork "that works on the connective tissue (fascia) to release, realign and balance the whole body". From their catalog: " ... gravity stresses the imbalances in [our] structure, which in turn changes the network of muscles and connective tissues, robbing the body of energy and good physiological function. These changes could [can] be reversed"

Helga was developed as a means of using gravity - to free and relax the musculature and fascial of your hips, back, shoulders and neck, by yourself, whenever convenient. As gently or robustly as you wish.

Complete information
- build plans, cutting/hardware lists, kits and finished Helga's will be available from $5 to $125 through the website (tba).

Lay back and let gravity do the work. Guaranteed to loosen stiff fascia and increase the range of motion for your arms and back. More details soon.
AND
see Nick's VW web site at:the Sonoran Camper Bus pages. And - see the War and Peace Archive - articles germane to our war's in Iraq and Afghanistan