Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

balance

Things I Wish I Explained Better….

by

I often have a conversation with a client that causes me to think – “Wow, I didn’t do a very good job of covering all the information I wanted to!” There is a lot of information we share with clients and it’s a lot to absorb, especially in the beginning.  We also have such a smart group of people who come to Pain Free Performance, we sometimes assume people know things that they don’t.

Here is a smattering of random questions and topics that come up often and might be helpful as you continue your Egoscue journey toward a pain free body! Clients often ask or say….

Can I resume weightlifting?

At first, NO.  We don’t want to strengthen any misalignments.  When your body is ready, we will give you some pointers on how to start with weights again.  You will be surprised at the “work-out” you will get from your Egoscue!

Can I go to Yoga class? Pilates? Tai Chi? Can I jog?

We are all about getting you back to your fullest most pain free life – whatever you love to do! The easy answer is yes, of course.  Talk with your Egoscue therapist regarding your particular issues and your favorite class or activity to make the most of it!

I twisted my ankle (bruised my elbow, tweaked my back) so I’m just going to cancel my appointment.

No, just the opposite! That’s the perfect time for you to come in – this is what we do – treat people in pain!  So, keep your appointment and have your therapist assess the injury and create a program that will enable you to heal faster and keep your newly aligned body on track!

I may not be doing my E-cises correctly and it made my leg hurt so I just stopped doing the program.

Contact us immediately if you feel that your program is causing any pain. We want to know, ask you a few questions and tweak the program if necessary.

I do my e-cises when I get home in the afternoon ……

Do your program in the morning! I know, I know sometimes it’s just not possible but here’s the thing…if you do your E-cises in the morning, you are setting yourself up to have your most aligned body possible to carry out all of the living you have to do during the day!  This means better function, less pain and less possible injury.  Talk with your therapist about how to adjust your program to fit your schedule.

Don’t cherry-pick from your program – do all of the E-cises in the order only!

The order of your Egoscue program is key. The e-cises are prescribed to either wake up certain muscles that are not doing their job or quiet muscles that are overdoing which creates that pesky misalignment, poor function and pain! Depending on your specific issues, there is an important chain of events that must occur by doing the e-cises in order to get you to the best outcome….which is a pain free body!

Do I have to do everything on both sides?

Occasionally, I have a client who ran out of time, or thought because her pain was on the right side that she’d just do the e-cises on the right side. Not with Egoscue.  We are trying to get the two halves of the body to work together as intended.  What you do to one side, you must do to the other.  It is important for regaining muscle balance, symmetry and healing to do the complete program on both sides.  If you’re often running late, talk to us and we can tweak your program to fit those days that are just too busy!

Do I have to do Egoscue the rest of my life?

Yes, but a very doable, shorter version of your program. It will be as easy as brushing your teeth or bathing…a necessary and desirable habit to maintain your pain free functional body!  When you’re ready, your Egoscue therapist will instruct you on how to continue with abbreviated and rotating programs that will keep you aligned and living life to the fullest!

 Speaking of function….

One of the most important things I want our clients to understand is that our job is to improve the way your body functions. Pain relief is the amazing benefit of having a functional body. Pain is the symptom, not the cause.  When the joints in the body are in the proper position and the muscles are balanced – the pain goes away!

 

BACK PAIN

by

back-pain-picIf you have ever been faced with back pain, you will do anything for relief! You resort to injections, pain medication, even spinal fusion surgery…anything to stop the back pain.  But these options are all just masking the back pain, they are temporary.  To get lasting real results for your back pain, you must uncover the root of the problem – why do you have the back pain in the first place?

Our backs were designed to be flexible and able to carry weight. The time we spend sitting while working, studying, and relaxing greatly reduces the stimulus we are giving our body – and remember, our body is a stimulus response system.  This inactivity causes our back to loose full range of motion.  Muscles that do not move become muscles that cannot move. What happens? Back pain.

Back pain is a symptom of muscle imbalances over time. Your back pain could stem from something being off in the pelvis, over-contracted stomach muscles, or rounding of the upper back.  Whatever the imbalance, creating symmetry bilaterally and vertically restores proper alignment and your back pain is relieved!  That’s what we do at Pain Free Performance utilizing the Egoscue method.  Let us help you relieve your back pain.

 

KEEP MOVING! by Jessica Powell

by

sitting-diseaseAs a culture we have quit moving. Our mornings are a rush to get to work where we will sit for 8 hours a day. We might move to get lunch or take a break from the 9-5 grind, but it is minimal. We come home, eat dinner, and prepare for an evening on the couch of binge watching our current Netflix fix. Everyday  Americans are sitting for 13 hours while we are awake. Combined with the 8 hours of sleep our bodies need to live a healthy lifestyle, we are on average sedentary for 21 hours! You won’t believe what all of this is doing to your body!!!

Our heads are forward, our shoulders and back are rounding, and our knees are phoning in. Our bodies were meant to walk, dance, play on the floor, and run!  At Pain Free, we want to reverse the damage that technology and our culture has done to our bodies. We want to increase our function so that our limitations won’t prevent us from the spontaneous hike our wife invites us on or going skiing with an old friend. What activities have you put aside due to pain?

At Pain Free Performance, we want to get you back to living your best life including all the activities you love. We practice the Egoscue Method, which is a whole body approach to eliminating pain and enhancing your body’s ability to move. We do not focus on the site of the pain because often times it is not the the place of origin. Where is the pain in your body? What feels off or different? We chalk it up to age or irreversible injury. Acknowledge that it is a signal from your body and clue that change needs to occur. Our goal is always to enhance the symmetry in your body with the intent of rebalancing the muscles. When your muscles are balanced, you will be pain free.

Pain Free Performance provides your body with the stimulus it craves to reverse the hours we are inactive. The Egoscue Method will make you feel stronger, eliminate pain, and ultimately allow for your body’s future to not be dictated by physical limitations. We expect you to be hiking mountains, swimming, running, gardening, golfing – whatever you love to do – for the rest of your life. Allow Pain Free Performance to change your expectations of your body and create a life through motion!

THE EGOSCUE HABIT

by

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

by

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

by

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.

 

 

SCIATICA

by

Over the holidays, we’ve had a number of clients come in to the clinic with sciatic pain. This symptom can present in very different ways.  For some, it’s a painful sacro-iliac joint that stays in that one hip area and perhaps into the gluteal muscle.  Others will feel a twinge of pain in the hip and then a pain in the calf of the same leg.  The classic sciatic symptom is pain in the hip and all the way down the back of the leg.  At times, this pain can feel debilitating – if you have had that pain, you know what I mean.   Take a deep breath, there is hope without taking pain relievers or having back surgery.

The sciatic nerve is the main nerve that feeds all the other nerves through your legs. Think of it as the main electrical feed that comes out of your spine at the top of the sacrum goes through the pelvis and down the back of both your legs.  Where that nerve comes out of the spine (on either side) and crosses through the pelvis (either side) there is not a lot of clearance.  This makes it imperative that your pelvis is bilateral and symmetrical and your spine is equally bilateral and centered on top of the pelvis.

Sounds simple, right? Well it is and it isn’t.  The pelvis is 3 bones and they can be off in any of the 3 planes of movement and the spine sitting on top that can be off in those same 3 planes.  What holds all this in the proper position?  Muscles.   Lots of them.  And, they all need to work equally as a team.  In order to work as that team, they need a wide variety of movement.  More and more in our culture and environment, we are getting less movement and less variety of movement.

We think driving to the gym and doing a cross-training work out every day is enough. That is good, but nothing compared to what our bodies really need – we need to run, jump, twist, throw, climb, push and pull.  Ideally, we need to do these things for hours every day.  We are not meant to sit still.

Stand normally in front of a full length mirror and look to see where your feet and knees point. Your feet and knee position will tell you a lot about your hips.  If your knees and feet point straight ahead equally, then your pelvis is in a good position; if one or both of either your feet or knees point in different directions, possibly both halves of your pelvis is out of position.  You can change that with a bit of work and the right exercises to get the muscles working appropriately again.

That is what the Egoscue method is all about. It is what we do at Pain Free Performance.  Call us or come and see us and we can enable you to alleviate your sciatic pain.

I’VE GOT A HEADACHE!

by

I’ve got a headache! How often do you complain of having one?  Daily? Couple times a week? Once a month?  Some headaches are related to allergies, others are migraines and still others are spouse or child related!

No matter how often they occur or what kind, they can be debilitating.  Some people with migraines have to sequester themselves for days in the dark, taking Advil or Excedrin Migraine.  If it’s a really bad one then we bring out the Imitrex or some version of sumatriptan or other prescription drugs.

What if we did something about the cause of the headache instead of just covering it up with drugs?  We are really just masking the problem and not doing anything about its root cause.  Chances are, the cause of your headache is a misalignment of your head, shoulders and upper back.  If you look at yourself in a side view, most of us are rounded forward in our upper backs and shoulders with the head forward of the middle of your shoulder, or your pelvis is forward of your shoulder which rounds your upper back.  In either case, because you are rounded forward, your lungs are being compressed and your heart is being compressed which means your respiratory system and cardiovascular system are having to work extra hard.  Your body knows it has to get blood and oxygen to your brain to keep you alive but because the position of your head, upper back and shoulders is so compromised, the blood vessels and capillaries cannot work efficiently.  They have to expand to get enough blood to the brain for the oxygen carbon dioxide exchange to take place and those capillaries expanding are what cause the headaches!

If we can get your head, shoulder and upper back in the vertical position by fixing your posture then the lungs, heart, blood vessels and capillaries can all work efficiently and no more headaches! Give us a call and we’ll show you exactly what we’re taking about.  We can get your posture into its most aligned and efficient place – giving you the control to end your headaches once and for all.