Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

alignment

OH MY ACHING FEET! PLANTAR FACIITIS

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Lately, we have been having more and more people come in with plantar fasciitis pain.   It’s a burning pain in the feet that worsens with every step.  Sometimes the pain is so intense it can even feel like the foot is landing on a nail. 

The plantar fascia is the tough sheath of connective tissue that runs from the heel to the toes like a fan on the underside of the feet.  When you have this foot pain it is because there is inflammation in the fascia.  The question to ask is why is the fascia inflamed?  The answer is because there is improper loading at foot strike.  Plantar fasciitis is not a foot problem, it is a posture problem.  Because you are not appropriately using your big leg muscles and hip muscles, you have left your feet to fend for themselves.  The foot is smacking down on the ground with each step bearing the brunt of the entire weight of the body without the support of your legs, hips and back working as a team.  All of these muscles and joints must work together to keep you out of pain.

If you stand sideways in a full length mirror, imagine a plumb line that starts at your ankles and goes straight up.  Do your ankles, knees, hips, shoulders and head line up on the plumb line?  If they don’t, that’s why you have foot pain (and hip pain, shoulder pain, knee pain and who knows what else)!  Now, turn and face that mirror.  Are the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles in parallel horizontal lines and do your feet point straight ahead?  If not, then you cannot use the muscles of your legs, hips and back to help your feet, leaving them at risk for this intense pain called plantar fasciitis. 

You can do something about your foot pain and it’s easy!  You need to get your body’s weight-bearing joints to line up in straight lines and at 90 degree angles which is the intended design of the body.   We are the original all-terrain vehicle!  How do you do it?  The answer is one simple word, one amazing method of pain relief – EGOSCUE.  Call me at Pain Free Performance and I’ll get you started.

 

EMBRACING THE TOWER! (Supine Groin Progressive in the Tower)

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Egoscue Tower ExerciseThe TOWER, as we affectionately call it, is truly an amazing piece of equipment.  It may look menacing but it should not be feared!  The tower helps to re-establish the functional chain reaction of muscles that we need in order to maintain good posture and be pain free.  It’s great because you just lie there and better posture happens just by lowering the leg through different positions!    Yes, it takes time to do it.   Because most of us don’t think anything is happening unless we’re DO-ing something, one might be skeptical that anything could be changing.  Just because you aren’t actively doing something doesn’t mean that the body is inactive. In the tower the body is actually very active while you just lay there!  Really.  For the musculoskeletal system, it’s like going on a long walk with everything working right — without any of your habitual compensations allowed to come into play.

At each level of the tower your hip flexor engages then releases, which then lets the pelvis drop back which then extends the back.  The shoulders open and the head and neck lengthen.  As the pelvis settles to the floor, there is a rotational component at the hip joint between the pelvis and thigh bone, the knee is extended straight which asks all the muscles of posterior leg to lengthen and equalize their pulls as they cross behind the knee.  The ankle stays in a close-packed position the whole time.  All of this happens at each level as you proceed down the tower, as the one leg gets lower in the tower the difference between the two halves of the pelvis gets greater.  This is what happens with each step we take, so in the tower you are spending an hour taking one perfect step.

This one simple exercise is great for all of us considering how much time we spend sitting.  It can lessen the effects of being at a desk at work or school all day or being in the car or on the couch for several hours. It has a cumulative effect – we’re all playing catch-up but soon you’ll be making deposits in your posture account.  It is an important exercise to help alleviate neck pain, back pain, hip pain and knee pain.  I’ve been doing Supine Groin Progressive for 20 years – since before the tower even existed.  I continue to include it in my menu several times a week and each time I finish in the evening, I feel so amazing the next morning I have to ask myself why I don’t do it every day!   So, if your Egoscue therapist suggests the exercise Supine Groin Progressive, I encourage you to consider investing in the time, the tower and yourself.

 

WHAT A PAIN IN THE NECK!!

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Maybe it was the fear generated around the recent storm or the stress of the upcoming holidays and shopping, but we have had an increase in the number of folks coming in with neck pain.  They are always surprised when we don’t do anything to their neck or give them anything to do to their neck.  It’s simple:  the neck is not the problem.  Your neck is the symptom but the problem is more likely a rounded upper back, or the shoulders hinged forward and one shoulder is higher than the other.  Either of those scenarios means that your pelvis is out of balance and out of position.

If you stand sideways in the mirror, there should be a straight vertical line from your ankles to knees to pelvis to shoulder to head.  When you don’t “load vertically” then you are unconsciously asking different muscles to do a job they weren’t designed to do. In the case of your neck, if your head is forward of that vertical line then you have been asking those neck muscles to hold up around 15 pounds!  You don’t ask your arm or shoulder to hold up a  bowling ball for more than a few seconds but that’s what your head sitting on your neck is like and you hold your head like that for hours!  Any wonder your neck hurts??

So, if your neck is hurting, it’s not your neck – it’s your posture.  Call us at Pain Performance and let us help you get your posture back in alignment.  You’ll be surprised at how many other aches and pains will disappear as well!

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

 

 

 

HERNIATED DISC

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HERNIATED DISC

 Just the other day, one of my favorite clients called me to cancel her appointment.  She told me she bent over to pick up her purse, got a little twinge of pain in her back and then could not stand back up!  All she could do was lay flat on her back.  Her husband took her to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with a herniated disc.  She was sent home with muscle relaxers and after seeing her physician the next day she was advised to rest with no exercise.  Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

 What is a herniated disk anyway?  Our spine is designed so that each vertebra is stacked one on top of the other.  There is a fibrous disc that acts much like a washer in between each vertebra that helps cushion the space between the bones as we move, bend, twist and stretch.  If the spine is pulled out of alignment, then the pressure will cause the disc to squish out to one side pressing on the nerve – the herniated disc.

 My client is fit, has been exercising all her life with few exceptions and had never had this happen before – what could have caused it?  After we talked awhile, she explained that she had been in the car for two days prior coming home from a fabulous vacation.  She hadn’t been doing her e-cises on vacation and was feeling the effects – a little sore and tight everywhere!  The fact that she had not been keeping her body in alignment with her menu of e-cises and had been stuck in that misalignment for two days in the car, caused her muscles to really tighten up.  When she bent over to pick up her purse, the tight muscles pulled her vertebra to one side, causing the disc to protrude and press on her nerve.  Ouch!

 The doctor’s prescription for a muscle relaxer really helped my client out of her initial spasm.  We certainly understand the “rest and no exercise” advice too, however, Egoscue e-cises are not the same typical back stretches or strengthening done other places.  That’s what is so great about Egoscue!  There are many resting positions in the e-cise repertoire that can help facilitate getting the spine back into optimal alignment without stress or strain involved with normal “exercise”.  These e-cises dovetail well the doctor’s advice and can actually speed up the process of getting back to normal.  My client came on in for her appointment and we gave her some very simple resting positions including the following that I want to share with all of you.

Click below on the Static Back link to watch the video.  It’s  a simple resting position that uses gravity to gently encourage the spine to re-align by easing the muscles out of spasm!

Static Back

 

 

Go Barefoot!!

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The Egoscue Method is based on the idea that health is motion.  The more we move, the healthier we are, the healthier we stay.  In the poorer regions of our world, people move more.  They may walk to get from one place to another, perhaps they grow their own food and actually harvest the fields to put it on the table – they’re moving because they have to.  They often keep moving longer than we do in our wealthier, more sedentary culture.  We could learn a lot from their lifestyle.

In these cultures, often we see folks going barefoot – while they work, run, play and walk!  People ask me at Pain Free all the time about what kind of shoes they should be wearing.  The answer is in another lesson we could learn from these other cultures– no shoes are the best for your feet!  In May of 2010, Harvard Medical School released a study that found that the more support, more cushioning and more expensive the shoe, the more likely for injury.  The reason?  Most shoes do not allow your foot to go through its natural motion.  The support of a shoe can actually weaken the muscles of the foot and the muscles of the leg and hip that work as a team with the foot.  The muscles of the feet are no different than any other muscles of the body – they need movement and lots of it! If you don’t use them, they become weak and atrophy.

 I am not suggesting that you throw away your orthotics and expensive shoes.  If you need them to walk without pain, then use them.  What I am suggesting is that if your body alignment is good and you can go barefoot, by all means do it. Your feet will thank you for it!

Do You Have Knee Pain?

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Do You Have Knee Pain?

Do you have knee pain?  One of them is stiff and aches in the morning. Or you get knee pain going up stairs or walking downhill. You don’t cross your legs anymore because that knee hurts.

So, you ask your doctor about it and she says that extra ten pounds puts that much more pressure on the knee. Or maybe, she says it just goes with getting older. My question is this:  how come that extra weight or age only affects one knee??? The answer is: because your knee pain is not the problem—your knee pain is the symptom but the problem is your alignment!

If you stand in front of a full length mirror, look at how your hips, knees and feet line up. Are your hips level?  Do your knees point straight ahead? How about your feet? Do they splay out or point straight ahead?  Probably one foot points out more than the other. If your feet and knees point in any other direction than straight ahead, then at some point you will get knee pain.

It is really very simple; the knee is a hinge joint so if the feet and or knees point off to the side, you’re putting a torque or twist at that joint. With every step you take, you’re asking that hinge joint to take on a twist under a load that it is not designed to handle. A couple of years of that twisting and you’ve got knee pain.

So, they’ll tell you to lose some weight and next they’ll want to replace the knee. I just saw an ad on TV about a new knee replacement—to sell you on a knee replacement! Of course, sometimes it’s necessary, but for most of us that original is just fine—the design has been around for a few thousand years! Either way, new knee or the ones you were born with – the advice is the same: fix your posture and your alignment and you won’t have knee pain!

Are you ready to have a life free of knee pain?  Do you want to get back to doing the things you love to do without pain?  If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, let’s find out what Egoscue can do to help. You can reach us by phone at 434-296-0600 or via email at painfree@painfreeperformance.org. If you aren’t in the Charlottesville area, no problem!  We work with folks from all over the country via Skype. We can get you the help you need without you ever having to leave your house! To free yourself from knee pain, you have to get your body balanced. When you do, you can get back to doing all the things you love to do, PAIN FREE!
QUESTION: What activity have you stopped doing because of your knee pain?

What Is Pain Free Performance?

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We are a community of people who all share the same vision.  Following our purpose – caring for people – alleviating pain. We are people of integrity, we’re smart, trained and experienced – you are in good hands – we know what we’re doing.  When it comes to Egoscue centered postural therapy we are the real deal. We practice a sound  evidence based approach that has been helping people get out of pain for over 42 years: Egoscue in it’s pure form.
We believe in getting back to the basic design  intended for the human body – your body. It’s not about a quick fix, it’s a journey to living pain free by restoring muscle balance. It’s not something that we do to you – there is some work involved , but it’s good work.
People come to us because they  have heard from a friend or a health care provider that we really get to the why of what is hurting you. From the moment you walk through our door you will experience the difference in our approach to treatment.  You will be greeted with a smile, compassion and understanding along with exceptional postural therapy. Our approach is very different…. in fact many things about us are different. We have made a conscious choice to resist the latest trends, current frenzied marketing approaches, credit cards and the traditional medical office experience.  Yes, we are a professional pain management clinic. However, we are care-givers who will be spending a lot of time with you , focused on your body, your alignment, alleviating your pain — giving you the tools to get back to your life.
Our true purpose is to guide your body back to your original design.  It’s not about orthotics, back braces, medications, injections or surgery.  It’s about teaching you how to undo all that has happened in your body due to the world we live in.  Sitting in the car for hours, or just sitting for hours, leaning over while we work, breaking a bone or two, that bad accident, inactivity, overuse – these things wreck havoc on that “original design”. All of these things have contributed to your pain.. Our passion is to teach you  how to re-educate your muscles to put your body back in alignment.

Our door is always open.  Please feel free to stop by, get a tour, meet our staff and see what we are all about. We look forward to meeting you.

In Good Health,

Cindy, Lisa, Mackie and Kat