Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Posture Alignment Therapists, Graduates of Egoscue University

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Vertigo

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Recently, we have had several clients come to see us with stories of having vertigo.  Often times they share the information as an aside to why they’re really here.  I want to explain why posture plays a huge role in the onset of vertigo for some people.  We took the following from Pete Egoscue’s insights on vertigo published on the Sonima website.  Be sure to check out the Egoscue E-cises Pete recommends at the end of his article:

VERTIGO

Vertigo is not pleasant. Its primary symptom is dizziness, sometimes so severe that the patient experiences nausea and vomiting, and it can last anywhere from a couple of hours to months and even years. Other symptoms range from headaches and eye twitching to sweating and hearing a persistent ringing in the ear. While the exact number of people who experience vertigo is not known, it has been estimated that 40 percent of all Americans will visit the doctor at some point in their lives because of vertigo. If you have had it, there really is no mistaking the sensation.

What Causes Vertigo?

Sometimes, vertigo is disease or illness-based, the result of a virus or a tumor, but doctors can quickly determine those cases. Most often vertigo is idiopathic, which is a medical term meaning no known cause or origin. In my experience, though, I’ve found most of those idiopathic versions of vertigo actually have a very specific cause—the position of the head. In other words, vertigo is usually about posture.

Humans are gravity machines; like the entire operating system of our universe, we rely on gravity to function, and because the body knows just how important our relation to gravity is, it offers redundant systems to make sure we have an accurate reading on our gravity field, i.e., the ground.
[Read more…] about Vertigo

The Eight Laws of Physical Health

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**This is a condensed version of The Eight Laws of Physical Health posted on the Egoscue University website.

THE EIGHT LAWS

I think we can all agree that the majority of laws are in place to protect us.  When it comes to the body, we have laws in place as well.  Eight of them, actually.  Pete Egoscue talks about them in his book, Pain Free.  Not only does he go in-depth about the Eight Laws, but gives you the Egoscue perspective on posture and pain.  Egoscue’s laws are a great way to understand how everything in the body works together.

  1. VERTICAL LOADING: Gravity is necessary for health. In order for gravity to exert a positive and dynamic influence on the body, the skeleton must be vertically aligned in its posture.

 

  1. DYNAMIC TENSION: A state of constant tension exists between the front of the body and the back.  The posterior portion is responsible for the erection of the body and the anterior is responsible for the flexion, or bending forward, of the body.  Neither activity can be performed correctly and healthily without this action.

[Read more…] about The Eight Laws of Physical Health

Continuing Exercises After Injury

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People come to Pain Free Performance to confront their pain by resolving their body’s muscular imbalance.  When our clients begin noticing a significant reduction in their pain level, they are motivated to continue their Egoscue program creating improvement in their mobility and function.  So, what happens when our client experiences an acute injury from a fall, twist, sport or some heavy lifting?

Although the client’s pain may be tied to a particular event or movement, discontinuing their Egoscue exercises is not part of the best recovery. Acute pain after an injury is the perfect time to come in and see us Pain Free. Your therapist is trained to look at you and determine the best path to unravel this sudden shift in the body that resulted in your acute pain. At Pain Free, we analyze the body’s current function, identify restrictions in range of motion and then restore muscle imbalance and movement.

If your body becomes injured, give your therapist a call.  There is no need to suffer through the pain.  You can get back to the life you love and the ability to do what you enjoy and be pain free sooner than you think!

Set In Our Ways

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The modern era has provided us with many benefits. Enhanced technology has changed our health care, our connections with one another, and increased our access to opportunities we would not have had without it. We see the changes with our children and their relationships with their peers. As technology changes our lives, we adapt socially and our bodies physically adapt.

Most of us have had periods in our life that require us to commute long distances or work in front of a screen. In order to live our lives, we frequently sit. Sitting or holding any position for an extended period of time changes our muscles, our joints and our cardiovascular system. These changes can decrease blood flow throughout our body and make our muscles atrophy. When we sit or hold any position for too long, some muscles shorten and other muscles stretch. Our body begins to adapt to the improper muscle length change which pulls our joints out of alignment. That’s when the pain begins.

At Pain Free, we use the Egoscue method that considers the whole body and the relationship of all muscles and joints to each other. We understand that a patient’s health history and movement history has created adaptations and changes in their musculoskeletal system. These changes have affected their body’s mobility, blood flow, and led to pain. This could be back pain, knee pain, hip pain, foot pain, or any part of the body that has had to adapt to hours of holding a position. With time, we are able to realign the body and nourish muscles that support the body. When muscles work the way they were designed to, we are pain free!

What’s Causing Your Back Pain??

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When it comes to back pain, there is no classic case. Clients come to us with different reasons for their back pain including: muscle spasms, fusions, herniated discs, impinged nerves, spondylolysis, or scoliosis. All of these medical diagnoses are a result of a muscular imbalance. Although everyone’s back pain does not look the same, many of these patients have a something in common: a misaligned pelvis.

When the body is misaligned, it is forced to adapt just to function. This means that parts of our body are doing jobs that they were never meant to do. When the pelvis is tilted (anterior, posterior, elevated or rotated) it changes the curve of our spine. This is important because the curves of our spine are designed to absorb shock and prevent us from feeling pain!

So how do we fix this? By providing the body with the exercise or stimulus it needs, the alignment of the pelvis will slowly be restored. This will allow your pelvis to be balanced again in a neutral and functional position which restores the curve of the spine.

Getting your pelvis in the correct position is not where we stop. We have to train the muscles around the pelvis to continue to hold the correct position. If your pelvis is misaligned, it’s likely that your gluteal muscles, (those big muscles in your behind) are not working the way they were designed. By retraining those muscles to work as they were intended, we can help restore the stability to your pelvis, realign the spine and get rid of the back pain.

The beauty in restoring alignment and function to the body utilizing the Egoscue Method, is that it is lasting and preventative. As Egoscue therapists, we know that we are providing our clients with the tools they need to not only get out of pain, but also to prevent future issues!

 

The Whole Picture of Being Pain Free

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As Egoscue certified therapists, when we look at the body, we do not isolate it into individual bones or parts. We hear our clients when they identify the quality and site of their pain whether it’s knee pain, back pain, hip pain, or foot pain. This information is used as a tool to provide appropriate care for our client, but we continue to treat the whole body. In order to eliminate pain long term, we must work to correct the imbalance of the body as a whole unit.

When our client’s come to Pain Free Performance, we encourage them to “listen to their bodies”. This means to acknowledge when they have pain, to not complete exercises that bring on pain, and identify changes within their body after completing a musculoskeletal exercise.

In an Egoscue therapy session, we might encourage our client to stand with their backs against the wall and have their heels, hips, shoulders, and head touching the wall for two minutes. For some clients, not all of their body parts will be able to touch the wall in the beginning. During these two minutes, a client could feel that their body is falling forward, that the muscles behind their knee could be stretching, or they could notice that their head is forward. After two minutes of holding this exercise, we watch the client walk and ask them to consider if anything in their gait is different which could include:

Are they lighter on their feet?

Are they standing straighter?

Has their knee pain decreased?

Do they feel equal weight bear in both feet?

As therapists, we are looking for a change in the function of their body. We are assessing whether the exercise restored the client’s ankle function or created a lighter load in the client’s steps. In the beginning pain level or quality might not change, but it is through restored function of the musculoskeletal system that our clients will not only have improved posture, but improved quality of life without limitations. Balance and restored function of the musculoskeletal system are the key to becoming pain free.

 

A Simple Self Test for Alignment

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How can you tell if your body is out of alignment?

Stand against a wall. With your shoulder blades touching the wall, is your head touching the wall too?

If you have to pull your head back to make contact with the wall then your head is positioned forward. This is important information as a forward head  can create dysfunction and cause neck pain, shoulder pain and back pain.

If you have trouble backing the car out of the driveway or performing activities that are not as easy as they once were, it’s because many physical activities depend on a functional head position for their execution.

Use the wall test to assess if your body is in alignment!

Alignment While Exercising

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Have you ever been told by a fitness instructor or a health care professional to tuck your pelvis under to protect your back?

Look in any anatomy book at the skeletal system and you will see that the lower back is designed to have a curve in it.  The curve of the lower back is there to absorb the “shock” of your body weight when you stand or move.  When you tuck the pelvis under you are decreasing the curve of your lower spine and taking away the shock absorber.  Doing this will eventually contribute to back pain. But that’s not all!

Our bodies work as a unit.  Everything is connected in one way or another.  A tucked pelvis can also create rounding in the upper back which can cause the shoulders to move forward.  A rounded upper back can cause the head to go forward.  Below the waist the tucked pelvis will change the way the leg muscles work.  The change in the work of the leg muscles due to a tucked pelvis will force a slight bend at the knees. Overtime the uneven pressure on the knees can lead to a wearing of the cartilage, inflammation and pain.

Anytime you change the design of the skeletal system it effects the system as a whole.  There are safe ways to exercise with or without weights that do not involve changing the natural alignment.  Use your Egoscue programs to align your body (get straight).  Then when you embark on a fitness activity (strengthen), allow the natural curve in your spine and keep your shoulders back while performing upper body exercises.  If you need additional guidance, we are happy to help.