Pain Free Performance — Egoscue Certified

Posture Alignment Therapists, Certified by Egoscue University

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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.

Muscle Memory and Egoscue

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What makes the Egoscue method work so well compared to other treatments? The Egoscue method is different because it utilizes the basic way our body learns and remembers movement. When you do your Egoscue exercises each morning, you activate muscles in the correct way to align your body.
Motor memory, or muscle memory, allows the cells within our bodies to coordinate our movements, muscles, and brain to create the desired activity. Each time you move, your body remembers it. When movements are done repetitively, your body keeps track and creates the “new normal”. Science shows that it takes 90 days of that new repetitive motion to have the memory remain without prompting. With Egoscue we are introducing proper stimulus to create equal and bilateral activity in the muscles. This retraining process is amazing because it means we have the ability to change and heal ourselves!
In comparison, when a person goes to the chiropractor, they align their bodies through an adjustment of the bones. Without the memory in the muscles, the skeletal alignment will not stay because muscles pull bones. This creates a need for frequent follow-up appointments. With the Egoscue method, our clients are able to retrain the musculature to hold their bones in the correct position. This is why the Egoscue method is a therapy that creates lasting change and is not just temporary symptom relief.
Utilizing Egoscue, our clients are able to create new alignment with noticeable improvement in pain reduction, movement, balance, and quality of life!

Joint Replacement and Egoscue

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Are you and your physician choosing joint replacement?  Let us help you maximize your outcome.

When your joint is bone-on-bone, the pain is worsening and keeps you from your daily activities; joint replacement may be the next best step.  I get it, I’d try everything I could to avoid surgery, but sometimes it’s inevitable.  So, once you and your physician make this life changing decision, there are some other things to consider as you look forward to getting back to normal.  Consider your alignment.

For those of you who are already on board with Egoscue, you know that we are all about pain relief through proper alignment.  The key to our work is retraining the muscles to work equally so when the weight of your body goes through your joints it is balanced.   If muscles are out of whack and doing too much or too little, bones are pulled out of place, joints are wearing unevenly and therein lies your pain.  Once your joints bear weight evenly you gain strength, balance and function.   This not only alleviates pain, but protects you in the future.  Although I talk about how cartilage regenerates, some joints are so compromised that replacement is the only option.  Each body is different; everyone’s history and injuries are different.  If you are in pain and cannot function, choosing joint replacement isn’t a failure; it is an amazing tool to get your body and your life back to where it needs to be.

If joint replacement is next, you have prepared for it beautifully!  You’re in your best alignment going into surgery – a step ahead of the curve with strength and balance as you also embark on post-surgery rehab.  One of our clients recently exclaimed that “My doctors, all the nurses and my rehab therapists were amazed at how strong I was and how fast I recovered from my knee replacement!”  “They asked me what I had been doing and I told them it was all my hard work doing Egoscue at Pain Free!”   She continues to do her Egoscue e-cises to maintain her alignment and protect her new joint.

If you are planning on joint replacement, we can help you prepare and improve your outcome.  And, we are waiting for you on the other side to help keep your entire body functioning – head to toe – including your new joint!

Exercise and Egoscue

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We tend to think about our daily exercise as strengthening our muscles or stretching our muscles. We do it every day, we are committed and diligent to maintain our strength and flexibility. If we stopped any part of our routine, we’d lose ground and our body would suffer, right? While there is truth to this, it may not be the appropriate thing to do when you are in pain. As Egoscue therapists we are trained to look at the body using a different approach.

In my physical therapy training, I learned the origin and insertion of all of the muscles and where they connect to the bones. I was taught the particular function and range of motion of each of the individual muscles. In physical therapy, I was trained in specific techniques to treat neck pain, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, shoulder pain – you name it. I also designed personal fitness programs to get people strong. I taught stretch classes to relax tight muscles. I owned a fitness studio in the 1980’s when aerobic classes were the thing to do. I taught classes 7 days a week and had so much fun! I was in great shape but my body was a mess. Why? I never thought about the position of my joints. Even with pain, I would have been hard-pressed to give up my exercise. It was a big part of my life. My new Egoscue clients feel the same way when initially stepping back from their exercise might be necessary. They feel as though they will lose ground with their fitness.

Here is what I now understand from my training and certification utilizing the Egoscue Method for the last 13 years. Our habits and old injuries can change the position of our joints. When joints no longer line up correctly, an uneven force goes through them when they bear the weight of your body. This new uneven pattern wears down the cartilage and changes the balance of the muscles. Some muscles are doing more work than they are designed to do, causing them to get stronger and other muscles are doing less work than designed, causing them to weaken. The overall loading of the joints is now very compromised. Let me give you an example:

John Doe works at his desk all day with his back rounded and shoulders slumped over his computer. Years of this posture becomes habit and his muscles now rest in this position. Some of his muscles have shortened over time making it difficult for him to stand straight and pull his shoulders back. It feels normal to have rounded shoulders. John Doe really does not think about it. He has no pain. John Doe goes to the gym and does weight training. His shoulders and his upper back are rounded as he performs bicep curls. Yes, he is strengthening his bicep muscles but, he is also reinforcing the uneven loading of his spine and shoulders.

Fast forward a couple of years and John Doe now has lower back pain. The rounding in his upper back and shoulders changed his center of gravity. This causes the muscles of his lower back to work harder to compensate for the changed center of gravity. The body’s response is that the lower back muscles are tight, creating pressure on the nerves. Strengthening and stretching the muscles of the low back will NOT change the position of the rounded upper back and shoulders. John Doe’s back pain is caused by the position of this upper back and shoulders.

John Doe looks everywhere for relief – physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture. Everyone is trying very hard to help but focusing on his back. He still hurts. He finally ends up at Pain Free. In order to help him using the Egoscue Method, we focus on his body as a unit, his alignment. We might recommend temporarily changing how he works his biceps until his upper back and shoulders are in a better position. Does this mean he can never do bicep curls again with weights? Absolutely not! It just means that he may need to back off his old exercise routine a bit until his body responds to the new exercise designed to correct the upper back and shoulder position.

You can understand now that everything in the body is connected. Working on the body part that hurts will not change the way the body moves. The Egoscue Method has taught me how to look at the body as a whole, no longer thinking about strengthening or stretching muscles but alignment. When John Doe stands in front of me in pain, my focus is determining misalignment, what is necessary to correct it and getting him back to his life pain free. Maybe his focus is to be out of pain so that he can get back to his bicep curls. We both win.

Moving Toward Being Pain Free

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We often work with clients experiencing significant changes in their quality of life due to pain. Many are having pain for the first time and don’t understand why. They progressively and reluctantly remove the activities they love that seem to increase pain. Ironically this leads to no longer being able to sit, stand or move without discomfort. The catch is, even in pain, our bodies are meant to move. Ultimately, the body moves the way you move it or, doesn’t move because you don’t move it.

If you have been a cardio-queen, spending an hour doing the elliptical every morning and then go off to work sitting for eight hours, that’s a problem. Perhaps you’re a jogger and pound the pavement on the weekends but lay low during the week. Both of these scenarios can cause pain over time. Parts of your body and muscles are deprived of oxygen for all that time you are sitting or sedentary. Most people are out of alignment and can unwittingly create more dysfunction with activity. It creeps up on you and then one day, as our clients describe above, you are in pain for the first time. You have back pain, hip pain, foot pain, neck pain or shoulder pain and you don’t know what to do! You hurt, so you stop the morning exercise, the running, the elliptical. Inactivity is not the answer, but the right activity to correct your alignment is key to healing your pain.

At Pain Free, our job is to evaluate each client’s body, to diagnose what is truly causing the pain and reintroduce appropriate movement. This prescribed movement restores alignment, naturally removing pain which reunites people with the activities they enjoy! Let us join you on this journey back to moving well and doing the things you love to do.

Arthritis and Aging

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Many of us assume that as we age, there will be a certain amount of pain to endure. We think arthritis is a sure thing.  Or, is it?  And if so, is age really the only culprit?

First of all, what is arthritis?     It means “Inflammation, etiology unknown”.  Where does the inflammation come from?  There is the implied theory that we’ve just worn out our joints because we’ve lived so long!  If that were true, then everyone over a certain age would have arthritis or worn joints.  We know that knee pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, back pain comes from wear and tear.

Well, most often patients present with one side or the other hurting –I hear it all the time “thank goodness my other knee feels great!” This phenomenon alone debunks the theory that time on earth is dictating joint wear and pain.  While joint compression from age can be a factor would we really only have knee pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, and back pain on one side if pain was caused just by longevity?  No, both sides would have arthritis pain.

As Posture Alignment Specialists certified by Egoscue University, we evaluate bodies in pain all day every day– young and old, all sizes, shapes, injuries, surgeries, abilities and disabilities and condition levels. Most people come to us because they want pain relief – with knee pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, back pain, and ankle pain.  The simple and amazing thing is that they all have the same problem – their bodies are not properly aligned.  What your body needs is not youth but alignment… the way it was intended.  The earlier one understands the importance of alignment, the less arthritis has a chance!

joint alignment

Notice the alignment showing the ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders vertically and horizontally aligned, the pelvis is neutral, the spine has an s-curve, and the knees and feet point straight ahead. When this isn’t what is happening in our bodies – for whatever reason (accident, surgery, work posture) – some muscles begin doing too much and some not enough.  That is when bones are pulled out of alignment because of the compensation and then joints begin to wear unevenly.  This is true no matter what your age, however, the more years it goes uncorrected the more work one must do to unravel the compensations.

We need alignment so that our joints are properly “loaded” while we participate in as much weight bearing movement as we can handle, keep our range of motion in all joints full and active!  It’s not age, its alignment.  No matter what your age, we can help you retrain your body to be straighter and more functional without all the pain!