Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

Jess Powell

GARDENING SEASON AGAIN!

by

Ah yes! It’s time for gardening and yard work.  Finally!  But after just a couple of hours of gardening, my back hurts.  We hear this at Pain Free in the spring, especially as people start getting more active.  They get back pain from what seems to be the simplest most innocuous movements.

We forget that the body is a stimulus-response system (everything we do and eve think has a muscular response in the body). If you’ve been sitting around all winter that inactivity created some less mobile areas in the body.  You may have been active all winter, going to the gym, lifting weights, hours of aerobics, skiing – active!  But moving into the garden we still hear “my back hurts!”.  Those winter activities are great and, even better, fun! However, they don’t get our bodies more functional. What I mean by that is joints lined up vertically and horizontally.  Moving that bag of topsoil requires different movement strength than your weight machine, stair machine, or elliptical. You need to be functional before you are active to stay pain free.

Take weeding for example, Most of us will sit on the ground and start pulling weeds. That sitting position already puts your back in a rounded, flexed position and once you start pulling weeds you force the back muscles to work in that disadvantaged position with no help from the hips and legs (because you’re sitting on them;). Ouch!

WHAT TO DO?!!

BEFORE: Think of your gardening and yardwork as a strength work-out and prepare for it like that.  Do a little warm-up before you go out to get your body functional, lined up vertically and equal right to left.  Try these e-cises:

AIRBENCH

CATS AND DOGS

ARM CIRCLES

ELBOW CURLS

DURING: It’s good to change positions.  Instead of sitting the whole time, kneel or work from your hands and knees, get up and walk around.  Try standing and bend from your hips for a bit.  Change positions every 10-20 minutes.  Your body likes a variety of movement and positions!

AFTER: When you’re done and feeling all proud of yourself, instead of plopping down on the couch, take that much deserved break in static back – everyone’s favorite exercise and so restorative.  If your back pain continues give us a call.  At Pain Free Performance, we are Posture Alignment Specialists certified by Egoscue University — we can help you eliminate that back pain and enjoy your garden!

 

“PAIN FREE” by Pete Egoscue …changed my life

by

 

 

Several years ago I was working at a Physical Therapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.  The patient I was treating asked me if I had heard of the book “Pain Free” by Pete Egoscue.  I told her that I had not and she offered to lend me her copy to read. When I read the book I had one of those “ah-ha” moments you have when something is so clear that it hits you over the head!  Up until that point I thought of myself as a well rounded therapist.  I did out-of-the-box types of manual therapies such as Strain/Counterstrain,  Crainosacral Therapy,  Myofascial Release and Zero Balancing along with more traditional treatments like ultrasound, electric stimulation and therapeutic exercise.  I helped many people get out of pain yet many times those  people would be back with the same pain or a new pain.  After reading “Pain Free”, I realized that I was treating their symptom and not the cause of the pain.  It just so happened that I was suffering from a meniscus tear in my right knee.  I decided to try some of the suggested e-cises in the book for knee pain.  My knee pain was only slightly better but I noticed other things in my body were feeling really different.  I no longer had the need to crack my neck, I was standing straighter and my morning stiffness was gone.  After studying the Egoscue Method I learned to look at how every part of the body works together. Western medicine trains us to focus on separate parts of the body.  But what I learned from Egoscue is that my knee pain was coming from the position of my pelvis and my upper back.  The knee pain was the symptom of a dysfunctional  pelvis and a mid back that was not moving. It took time to heal my meniscus but I  fully recovered with the added benefit of improved overall function utilizing Egoscue.

Pick up a copy of  “Pain Free”  and start with just  the first three chapters.  If it makes sense to you then give us a call and set up a free screen.  You can meet us, see what we’re all about and we’ll do a mini-evaluation.  We will take photos and be able to show you the imbalances in your body,  how these are contributing to your pain and then get you on the road to recovery too!