Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

Egoscue

What is Different About Egoscue?

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People ask us all the time “how is Egoscue different?” At Pain Free Performance, we want to get down to the root of your pain. Egoscue therapy looks at the entire body and determines what joints are out of alignment and therefore, are not mobilizing correctly. When this happens, other muscles will try to create the movement for the weaker muscles. This is what pulls the joint out of the right position.

Egoscue looks at each area of the body and determines which muscles are too tight or overworking. Through gait analysis and functional testing, Egoscue therapy can determine how your body is moving. Then the fun part begins. Our Egoscue University trained therapists will work with you to determine how to release the overworked muscles and how to wake up the muscles that are weaker and not supporting the joints. In other therapies, like traditional physical therapy, therapists work to strengthen the weakened joint, but overlook the compensations from different parts of the body. Egoscue therapists understand that your spine rotates because your right foot is turned out. Egoscue therapists at Pain Free Performance take it a step further and notice the over developed muscles on the right side of your spine. Their Egoscue training promotes further testing to release those muscles before they re-balance the rest of the body.

Want to get back to the life you had before pain? Live the life where you could move naturally and not in order to avoid the pain? Try Egoscue therapy at Pain Free Performance and let’s uncover the root of your pain.

You get injured, what do you do about your Egoscue program?

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It’s a beautiful day and you’re enjoying the outdoors. Then, bam! You slip over an acorn on the sidewalk and you’re down. And, you’re hurt. You have a knee injury, bruised elbows, a jammed wrist, you have swelling and ankle pain, not to mention you hit your head and the neck pain is killing you. Even if nothing is broken, there is so much pain!

When something like this happens and you’re injured, the advice used to be to put your feet up and rest. And, the last thing you want to do is “exercise”. But, we know better now. Your body will start compromising the minute you get up off the sidewalk. You’ll be guarding, limping and twisting to try to avoid the pain and that will throw everything off in your body. We don’t want you to get “stuck” there, so don’t stop moving but knowing the type of movement to do based on your injuries is key.

Your alignment will affect the outcome and recovery of the new injury. Even if there is a fracture, we’ll provide a revised program based upon your injury and how it affects your ability to do your Egoscue menu. For example, if you can’t handle full weight because of your foot pain or knee pain, we alter the position to take pressure off your injury. If you have a shoulder injury and you have arm pain, we can work around that. We align the rest of the body focusing on straightening your spine and your shoulder becomes less forward making you more functional. This will keep you on your path toward becoming properly aligned, assist in healing your injury properly and get you back to being pain free.

So if you’re injured, after getting the necessary diagnostics, call us and we’ll provide you with an updated program to get you through this unexpected setback. If you have an upcoming appointment with us, don’t cancel it, call us and come in. Your new menu will address the changes that occurred from the fall, while correcting the previous imbalances without compromising your recovery. This will speed up your body’s innate ability to heal by giving it the proper stimulus! We’ll keep you moving forward toward your pain free alignment goal while you’re healing.

THE EGOSCUE HABIT

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We talk a lot about “habits” – good and bad, new and old, conscious and even unconscious. We have a myriad of them that propel us through our days and nights.  Some habits we’d like to break, some we’d like to initiate.  I was recently  gifted the book “The Power of Habit” written by Charles Duhigg.  My mind went immediately to you, my Egoscue clients. How can we utilize this powerful thing (habit) to help us get exactly what we want?  Especially when we want an aligned and pain free body!

Well, if you’re reading this blog, you’re interested in Egoscue. You want to be vital and active and do everything you love to do. Your back pain, leg pain, shoulder pain, sciatica, or neck pain has gotten in the way.  Perhaps you have an Egoscue program.  Is your Egoscue program a habit or are you consciously struggling every day to map out a new plan to accomplish it but not always able to?

The most commonly asked question when clients are in the midst of aligning their body, feeling good and once again able to do their favorite activity is “will I have to do this for the rest of my life”? The answer is always “yes”!  Maintenance, you know.  Like brushing your teeth or bathing.  You get great results from those habits and you understand the consequences if you stop doing them so you do them every day and in the process you have created a habit.

Duhigg says that there is a habit loop – there is something that prompts you to “do” something (time of day, day of week, frame of mind, alarm on our phone for example); then there is the thing you do – the habit – (have a cup of coffee, brush your teeth, take the dog for a walk, shower, do your Egoscue) and then the reward –caffeine stimulant, fresh teeth, happy dog, clean skin, painless body.  See where I’m going with this?

He also says we should pay close attention to our reward because often the habit we attach to it is just a part of it – there might be more to the why of it than we are aware of. For example, back to our list above…

Coffee – gosh, actually I love the sensation of holding the warm cup as I plan my day

Brush my teeth – definitely fear driven – I hate the thought of a painful dental visit

Walk the dog – It is what it is – nothing like the unconditional love of a happy dog!

Shower – my husband thinks I smell amazing and always compliments me

Egoscue – I expect to continue to be active, do everything I want to do (and even some I haven’t done yet) and do it all pain free as I age and I’m getting up there!

Are you following me? What I want to impart to you, is that at Pain Free we are in it for the long haul.  This is life. Literally, all of the above is life – you have your own list.  From here forward let’s get back to experiencing all of it as fluidly and pain free as possible.   My favorite Pete Egoscue quote is: “A pain free, active lifestyle is not only possible, but it is the way you should expect to feel and live, no matter your age, no matter your previous experience”.  I believe this and YOU can believe it.  I will set myself up to live it.  It is my reward. It can be yours too.

Let me help you find the way to make your Egoscue program a habit so that it will work for you! Let’s define your prompts and tune into your rewards of doing your program for your life.  Remember that age is not a factor of function, misalignment is the culprit. The Egoscue Habit makes the lifelong pain free function that  you desire possible!

EGOSCUE AS MEDITATION

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With all of the heartbreaking craziness that is happening in the world recently, it’s no wonder we are all feeling a little unnerved. We watch the accounts on the news in horror, we stop watching but the images remain with us.  We feel worried, immense sadness and compassion for people directly affected and their families, fearful for ourselves and our families. Without being conscious of it, we hold our stress in our bodies and it might come out as the worst headache ever, nagging neck pain, or shoulder pain.  We’re not sleeping well.  We feel awful. It’s painful on every level – physical, mental, spiritual.

This last spring we began a meditation class here in our studio at Pain Free Performance in Charlottesville. We feel it’s an excellent compliment to the Egoscue work we do.  Our clients and friends had been talking more and more about wanting to join a group meditation so we found an inspired teacher and  began weekly meditations –it’s been great!

One of the first things we noticed is that some of the people in our group were claiming their place in the meditation circle with a mat and an Egoscue block. They participated in the guided class in static back!  The rest of us had powered through trying to perfect the more traditional meditation pose of sitting cross-legged with our hands in our laps.  While we were squirming and twisting to keep from cramping up, our friends were deep in pain free meditation.  We switched over pronto!  What we learned is that being in such a restorative physical position (static back) enabled us to be in a more receptive restful mental /spiritual position for meditation.  The results on every level were amazing.

So it got me thinking as I look for some peace and centeredness in these overwhelmingly turbulent times, that not only meditation might be in order but Egoscue as Meditation makes perfect sense.  In the Egoscue world, we teach our clients that their point of pain is not our focus but the alignment of the entire body is our focus.   Every part of the body is connected and interrelated just as is every part of our being – our bodies, our minds, our hearts.  We know how our physical pain can affect our mental status.  We know how our broken spirits can make us stumble physically.

So let me encourage you to use your Egoscue program time to take a few extra breaths;  breathe in strength, health, peace; breathe out fear, pain, worry.  We say it all the time in Egoscue – listen to your body.  Let’s add listen to your heart. Take another moment or two in static back to count your blessings and be grateful.  Not only can we heal our bodies but we can heal our spirits and minds.

In order to be the best advocate for peace for our families, community, country and our world, we have to start with ourselves and decompress, breathe, have faith, be kind, be well. Egoscue as Meditation?  Absolutely.

Aging and Egoscue

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What’s trending at Pain Free Performance? Aging….

When I think of the most common conversation that pops up at our clinic these days…it has to be aging. At Pain Free Performance we are made up of a lot of baby boomers, people who are interested in staying active, working hard, retiring well, while enjoying life to the fullest. What I’m hearing (and feeling) is that we don’t like the wrinkles, the diminishing muscle tone, but especially the insinuation that we’re losing physical momentum and there’s nothing we can do about it.  Society has always been fascinated with youth…but weren’t we young not long ago?

Then, something stops us in our tracks. We’re still skiing, golfing, swimming, running but afterwards we can barely move. We twist or land hard doing things we’ve always done and ouch – back pain, heel pain, foot pain, neck pain – where did that come from?!  I can’t tell you how often I hear “I suddenly feel so old”, “I can’t believe I can’t ____ anymore” (just fill in the blank), or “My doctor says I have arthritis…”.

I encourage you NOT to buy into the theory that because you’re a little older, that activity is a thing of the past. There’s a great quote John Elder, of Egoscue University, used in a recent article “If you didn’t know how old you are, you’d have no idea how old you are…”! Forget the number! The best thing we can do for ourselves is keep moving.  Stay active.  Listen to our bodies.  They are amazing – even as we age! The human body has an innate and amazing ability to heal.

Our bodies, young or old, are designed to run, jump, play, swim, move and rest without pain. The pain is an alarm sounding that something in the musculo-skeletal system is out of whack.  Your head should sit squarely on your neck – your ears over shoulders which should line up over your hips, which line up over your knees and on down to your ankles.  If you look at yourself from the side in the mirror and this isn’t happening, you’ve got some muscles that are not doing their job properly.  This creates uneven wear and tear on the joints and is how all of the tendonitis, stenosis, bulging disks and tennis elbow stuff come into play. It could be a result of an injury (ie; putting more weight on one ankle after breaking the other-for years and years) or habitual poor body mechanics or posture (ie; hunched over your computer, phone, steering wheel or easel).  Muscles pull bones – either into or out of alignment…are you getting the picture?

Most often, the missing link to becoming pain free is getting your body aligned so that you can continue to do all of the things you love to do.  Everything else – the meds, the massage, the adjustment – are great, but temporary relief.  Egoscue – it’s real lasting relief. If you have back pain, plantar fasciitis, rotator cuff syndrome, knee pain, arthritis, or wrist pain – don’t blame age, blame alignment!!

We know how to teach you to retrain your muscles so that they are on track – waking up those muscles that aren’t doing enough and quieting those muscles that have been overworking – perfectly pulling your skeletal system back into the design intended and relieving the pain. Let us show you how.

 

 

Egoscue should be your first stop….

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I was working with a client who happens to be a physician and at the end of his session he said something very powerful about his patients – “This should be their first stop, not their last!”.   So often, people come to us in incredible pain after months or years of trying everything else under the sun, finally experiencing relief with Egoscue.  Why?  Instead of focusing on the symptom, we get to the root of the pain.  We diagnose the underlying cause and provide the specific tools to gently move the body back into the intended alignment, alleviating the pain.  This is not a temporary fix, it’s for life.

It’s what we do.  So, don’t make us the last stop in your search for a pain free life, make Pain Free Performance your first stop.

 

Dr. Greg Gelburd Discovers Egoscue at Pain Free Performance!

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DR. GELBURD DISCOVERS PAIN FREE PERFORMANCE!

It’s an early morning in Haiti and I’m doing an airbench before clinic. My eyes are closed and I’m concentrating on Cindy Meyers’ words: “push down on your heels and push your lower back into the wall and hold for two minutes”.  I look like a man sitting in a chair without the chair under me. This is a small pause before my very busy medical clinic begins.

How did I come to airbenches in Haiti, doing these and other  postures described in “Pain Free” by Pete Egoscue to help resolve issues in my foot, my lower back and my shoulder? I’ve written this little story to describe to you how postural therapy has rescued me and why I believe many others in Charlottesville would benefit from some time spent with the people at Pain Free Performance where they treat pain with postural alignment.

Seven months ago, I was faced with several muscular skeletal problems that were not going away, the result of one bike collision with a car, 45 years of running with the wrong stride and a slowly aging 60 year old body. My pain was so severe a year ago I hiked down a Glacier National Park mountain backwards for two miles because I couldn’t come down on my right heel, it felt like a knife jabbing my foot! The bears thought I was just wacky but at least they stayed away.  I sought out help from Cindy Meyers, Mackie Boblette, and Kat Draego at Pain Free Performance. In February I saw Cindy for an evaluation and she photographed my body from several angles against a grid background. She showed me where my shoulders and hip bones were off balance, and then how my head was too far forward on my neck and how my gut was not so much full of extra hamburgers as I thought, but it protruded a little because of the lack of curvature in my middle back. She watched me walk and perform some stretches and positions so she could evaluate the way my body moves and from that she gave me a specific regimen to begin to re-balance my body.

Cindy, Mackie and Kat are Postural Alignment Specialists certified by Egoscue University.  Developed over forty years ago by anatomical functionalist Pete Egoscue,  this postural alignment therapy focuses on realigning the entire body. So even though my heels were giving me fits, the fact that my head, shoulders and hips were off kilter is what was causing the overall dysfunction and pain in my feet.

Every two weeks I have spent an hour with Cindy and Mackie for re-evaluation and a new program prescription as my body changes. I spend about 15-20 minutes each day performing these simple but deeply effective isometric postures, strengthening and balancing my skeleton and muscles. The results are amazing! Who knew? Even a vegan diet couldn’t get rid of my gut, but not only is that disappearing but my heel pain is pretty much gone! I’m back to running after a two year hiatus and my foot strike is now mid foot not heel. I’ve even gained an extra half inch back in my height with my spine better supported!

Now my family, office staff and Haitian friends are accustomed to my  airbenches, cat-dog postures and standing shoulder shrugs. I am continuing to make these postures a part of my routine before my work day, before running and other workouts. This is an incredible team of caring and gifted health workers. Their skills and their motivation will keep you going in the right direction until you are as healed as you want to be.

Dr. Greg Gelburd

 

 

 

“PAIN FREE” by Pete Egoscue …changed my life

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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!