Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

Alignment

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

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!

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!