Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

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Posture Alignment

SUPINE GROIN PROGRESSIVE

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If I told you there was something you could do for one hour that would help your back pain, your shoulder pain, hip pain and leg pain and all you have to do is lie on the floor, would you do it?  Well there is such a position – it’s called Supine Groin Progressive.  It’s sort of an exercise, but not really because you don’t do anything except lower your leg down through different levels every few minutes while lying there relaxing.  The benefits are amazing…let me explain.

This is the tower.  If you’ve been to Pain Free Performance, you’ve probably seen one.  If not, it looks a little weird, but it’s an amazing postural tool.  You see in the photo that one foot is in the upper level of the tower, the other is over a block.  What do you do?  You just lie there for 5 minutes each level and then do the same thing to the other leg.

What is it doing?

Several things are happening in several different muscles.  Because the floor acts as a template, this puts your head, shoulders, back, hips, legs and feet on an even plane. For most of us, this is not the norm when we are standing.   When you first lie down, you most likely will notice that there is space between your low back and the floor.    Your body will eventually conform and sink into the floor. 

Specifically, the ilio-psoas muscle at the base of the spine will relax and let your low back and pelvis settle back to the floor.  The ilio-psoas starts at the low spine, crosses over the pelvis and attaches to the inside of the upper thigh.  Because a lot of us sit so much, this muscle gets tight and since it is right in the middle of the body, it affects the whole body…especially the mid back and hips. 

How does it work? 

The body remembers this release of muscle tightness and the misalignment that comes with it.   Doing this Egoscue exercise has a cumulative effect on the body and is a great antidote for all those hours of sitting.  Over time, this muscle memory becomes the norm for your body’s posture when standing, running, sitting, or playing! 

If you have questions, call us at Pain Free Performance and schedule a posture evaluation.  The tower is just one exercise that would be a part of a postural exercise prescription.  Each person is given an individualized program based on their postural issues.  We can show you how improving your posture gives you pain relief, restores function and makes a world of difference in how your body feels and how you feel about almost everything.  This is why we do what we do!!!   

               

 

MY FEET ARE KILLING ME!

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At our clinic we hear this at least once a day.

And, some folks have the hardest time believing that foot pain is a posture problem.  Maybe it’s just that our feet are so far from our heads or that we’ve been trained to think of the body in separate parts and symptoms.  However, most likely your foot pain IS a posture problem.

Think of it this way, your feet are the first point of contact with the ground, so there is a lot of pressure from your body weight being pulled by gravity as each foot hits the ground.  The body is an integrated system and when it works properly your feet have a lot of support from your legs, hips and even your back.  They all work together as a team to support your feet, mitigating that gravitational pressure.  When your body is not working properly – meaning your posture is out of whack – then your feet are on their own, without support.

Take a quick look in the mirror.  Is your head bent over forward?  Are your shoulders and upper back rounded forward?  Is one shoulder higher than the other?  What about your hips…is one higher than the other?  These misalignments are created by a myriad of every day occurrences such as being hunched over a desk, operating table, sewing machine or computer; maybe you broke your arm and your shoulder position changed while you were casted or that sprained ankle created a change in your gait to avoid pain, so much so that you ended up with hip pain, leg pain, knee pain and eventually foot pain.

Again, your feet have no support.  They are rolling in, rolling out, slapping flat on the ground without the normal heel, ball, toe push off creating pain as they try to compensate for all the misalignments going on higher up in the body.  So, next time your feet are hurting, check your posture.  Getting the picture? Everything in our bodies is connected and rarely does the point of pain you are experiencing originate there.  Once you correct the misalignment, your foot pain will disappear also.

We know how to get to the root of your foot pain.  We understand the connections and what to do to untangle the postural issues life has created in your body so that you can be pain free.  Call us at Pain Free Performance…we are here to help.

Golf Exercises

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Spring is finally here!  Really!  I see more and more people out at the driving range and on the golf course, and that is great!  What I also see though, is a little alarming…the golfers bodies, especially shoulders, upper back, neck and hips are still frozen and stuck from winter.  Getting that golf ball off the tee and into the air is not a pretty sight and often results in some fairly substantial pain from the musculo-skeletal compensation used to get the job done.  That’s a mouthful, but it means there is a lot of pain in the low back, knees, elbows and shoulders for these golfers because of this. 

Here is a quick sequence of e-cises you can do both before and after golf that will unlock the upper back, hips and shoulders so the body can work as a inter-connected unit rather than disparate parts.  Our Egoscue enthusiasts will recognize these e-cises.  If you are not yet familiar with Egoscue e-cises, and would like to know more about these, give us a call and we’ll give you some pointers.

ARM CIRCLES to strengthen the upper back muscles involved in the ball and socket work while reconnecting the back and pelvis.

ELBOW CURLS to remind the shoulders that they have a hinge function while getting the upper back out of its rounded stooped place.

STANDING OVERHEAD EXTENSION getting all the load-bearing joints to line up in the vertical line and extending the upper back through the neck.

UPPER SPINAL FLOOR TWIST uses rotation of the spine to continue opening and lengthening the mid and upper back while strengthening the hips in the same plane, twists the upper body against the lower body (important for that swing!).

CATS AND DOGS work hips, spine, shoulders and neck in coordinated flexion-extension and asks all the muscles of hips, back shoulders to work bilaterally – both right and left shoulders together at the same time.  This is so important as more and more we use just one side of our bodies predominantly.

Try these both before and after you have played your round of golf.  I can guarantee you’ll feel the difference.  Contact us at Pain Free Performance with any questions.  Enjoy the course!

Winter Wonderland

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With our recent winter storm gifting us with 12 to 16 inches of beautiful snow a lot of us have been talking about it.  How deep it was, where it was and how much there was to move!!!

So, probably like you, my workout the last couple of days has been the old fashioned kind – shoveling snow!!! And, there’s nothing like a lot of wet heavy snow on a 120 foot driveway to have me eating some humble pie regarding my strength and endurance.  However, I lived through the three hour workout without issue and I have my Egoscue menus to thank for it!  How did you do?  Hopefully you won’t have to use these until next season, but I wanted to share some pointers:

As a warm-up before I started shoveling, I did my menu of Egoscue e-cises which got me ready in two ways:  1) it lined me up and got me equal on both sides.  Both left and right sides of me were working and made sure my legs and hips were ready to work and not my back!  2) it warms up the big and little shoulder, leg and hip muscles that will be doing the major work!

If you don’t have an Egoscue menu yet, then try these simple things – swing your arms around in all kinds of ways especially imitating what you’ll be doing with your snow shovel.  After that, try an “airbench” for a minute or two – you may know it as a “wall sit”. (Your back – low back especially– is against the wall, legs bent as if you were sitting in an imaginary chair, knees over your heels, equal weight in both heels) Go back and forth between those two things a couple of times before you begin shoveling.

While shoveling, keep your back as flat and straight as you can, which will make you bend your knees and use your legs and arms to toss the snow, not your back.  Make sure you move your feet up close to the shovel or the shovel back to you before lifting to toss.  Take lots of little mini breaks – this is hard work so be nice to yourself and stop and lean on your shovel to admire how far you’ve come!!

When you are done for the day, do another airbench then spend about 15 minutes in “static back” (which is lying on your back on the floor with your lower legs over the seat of a chair with your butt right up to the legs of the chair and your arms out to your sides, palms up).  Relax.  You’ll feel great afterwards! 

Give yourself some kudos for a job well done!

HOW POSTURE THERAPY WORKS

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HOW POSTURE THERAPY WORKS

I had a client the other day that came in with major pain and I thought I would share his story with you because this visit clearly illustrates how posture therapy works.

“Tom” came to us with left knee pain.  He had tried all kinds of things to help it – yoga, massage, stretching, chiropractic, physical therapy, even medication.  Nothing seemed to help and often his knee hurt as much if not more after these activities.

The focus of our posture work is looking at the body as a unit, as a complete system.  Most people think the problem is where the pain is, but that is hardly ever the case.  Tom’s pain tells us there is an issue with his left knee, but the cause of that knee pain is most likely somewhere else.  How do we find out where the root of the pain is?  Let me take you through our thought process as Posture Alignment Specialists certified by Egoscue University.   

As I said before, we look at the body as a unit, without focusing on the symptom (Tom’s knee pain).   I look at him to see if his ankles, knees, hips and shoulders line up in straight lines and at ninety degree angles.  I’m not thinking about what I can give him to make his knee feel better but I ask myself how is his body working as a unit?

Looking at Tom, the first thing that jumped out at me was that his right hip was an inch higher than the left.  Viewing from the front or back, his right hip was definitely elevated.  Just standing there, I could see that he did not really put equal weight on his right side.  With a hip that is elevated, it is so out of position that it is unable to do its job taking equal weight.

As a little test, I asked him to stand on one leg at a time, bending the other and bringing it up waist high.  Standing on his left side, the painful one, he could balance easily, but he could not balance standing on his right side.  So, I’m thinking that hip elevation is probably the major cause of his left knee pain, but I want to watch him walk first.  When he walks across the room and back I can see that he definitely shifts more onto his left side.  When I ask him if he can feel that he lands harder on his left side, his answer was “yeah, sort of” but when I have him watch himself walk in the mirror, he sees it clearly.

It’s a little strange that he shifts onto his painful side.  Most people shift away from the painful side.  Tom agrees that it doesn’t make any sense to him and has no idea why he would do that.  I explain that with his right hip so out of position, he simply is unable to load his weight equally from left to right.

So, Tom’s thought was “If my left knee hurts because my right hip is elevated, I’ll do some hip exercises to even them out and we’re good, right?”  “Hang on” I explained, “Let’s figure out why that hip is elevated.  Maybe that hip is the problem, but there could be something else going on.”

Often what we see in the clinic is that the client’s upper body position has a huge effect on the ability of the lower body to work properly.  When I look at Tom from his side views, I see his head way forward,  his shoulders hinged forward and his upper body rounded over.  He looks like a big “C”.  Tom’s spine should have three little curves in a gradual “S” shape, not a big “C”.  I put my hands on the top of each side of his pelvis to confirm that his right hip is higher and leaving my hands there I have Tom interlace his fingers together and put his hands behind his head and pull his elbows back as hard as he can.  He grimaces as if this is a bit difficult, then jokes about the only other time he did this, he was talking to a police officer!  But, guess what, with his hands up like that his hips become even.  I have him walk across the room again keeping his hands behind his head and elbows back and as he does that his hips stay level and load equally from left to right.  The hip disparity is gone and he can see it for himself as he walks toward the mirror.  He is amazed.

He laughs, “so all I have to do is walk around like this the rest of my life?”  I said “yeah, and in your neighborhood, they’d think nothing of it!!”  In all seriousness though, we have to get Tom’s upper body in that position without him having to put his hands up to get there.  I could see that Tom got it.

Putting his hands behind his head took his upper back that was stuck in flexion and shoulders that rounded forward and got them into a more extended position, closer to where the body was designed to be.  In this position the rest of his body changed and we could see his hips were level and his walking become equal left to right.

Bottom line:  Tom’s left knee hurts because every step he takes, he makes it work harder than it’s supposed to by putting more weight on it than it should normally get.  Along with that, as he keeps loading that left hip more and more, it gets tighter and tighter and over time stops rotating the way it should, so then the knee has to take up that job.  The knee was never designed to rotate – it’s a hinge.  So he’s not only putting more weight on that side with every step, he’s asking his left knee to do something it was never designed to do — rotate!  That knee is working like crazy taking more weight and twisting with every step – one hard step off a curb and the ACL tears – ouch!!!

Because the right hip is out of position he cannot load evenly left to right.  The right hip is out of position because his upper body is pulling it there.  In order to resolve the knee pain we have to get his upper body and shoulders in a more extended upright position.

All the other people trying to help him were only seeing his knee as the problem and so focused on the knee.  But the cause of his knee pain symptom was not the knee but the position of his upper body.  He could have done and did all kinds of things for his knee (the symptom) nothing changed because the cause of that symptom was not addressed.  We gave him a sequence of exercises to get the upper body more extended and some others to help the hip change position and stabilize so by the end of our session he felt better and walked better than he had in years.

This is not the end of the story.  In fact, it’s just a beginning.  Tom has to do his exercises every day to retrain his body so it will live in the better position.  It’s not a quick fix, but if he does the work, he will begin to stay in that better position and he won’t have knee pain. 

Where you are having pain (symptom) is rarely the actual cause of the problem.  The body works as a unit.  When we observe and treat the whole body as a unit the results can be amazing; some people have said miraculous.  It’s not so much a miracle, it’s just returning to the body’s original design of straight lines and 90 degree angles.  If you would like some help getting your body back to this basic design, give us a call or check out our website.

If you can understand these simple concepts, you don’t have to live with or be afraid of pain.  Pain is just a message that something is wrong and your body is asking for help.  Instead of ignoring it, let’s listen and then respond to it with grace and intelligence.  Believe in your body and honor it by giving it the motion it needs and the results can be truly amazing.

 MACKIE BOBLETTE

ARTHRITIS

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Perhaps you’ve visited your physician lately because of joint pain, and she tells you that you have arthritis.  Maybe she mentioned “degenerative joint disease” – which sounds even worse!  Well, these two things are basically the same thing – inflammation of the joint.  Many people think that the arthritis diagnosis is inevitable especially as we get older, not realizing that there is something to do to correct it, not just mask the symptoms with pain relievers. 

There are several different kinds of arthritis but we are talking about Osteoarthritis (OA).  This is the most common form of arthritis.  It is often called “wear and tear” arthritis and happens when cartilage in the joint breaks down creating the painful symptoms and joint swelling.

Sometimes OA presents on just one side of the body and not the other.  You might wonder why since both sides of the body are the same age! It all has to do with joint position.  When we are out of alignment (perhaps due to an injury) then we “load” one side of the body differently than the other, favoring the injured side.  When this happens, then that side will “wear” differently and faster which begins the arthritic process.  Sometimes people with osteoarthritis experience pain in all of their joints.  When joints are not lined up, the surfaces of the joints wear unevenly creating friction.  This friction causes inflammation, pain, and stiffness ….arthritis

One of my clients has arthritis in her hands…stiff sore inflamed joints-ouch!  But it’s not really about her hands at all.  Her shoulders are rounded forward, causing her elbow and wrist to be out of alignment.  All the joints are not moving well together and there is friction in every text and email she sends.  So, we’ve got to get her shoulders back into proper alignment, which will get her elbows in place and on down to her wrists and fingers. 

At Pain Free, we teach people how to get their bodies back to the original design – joints back in an equal bilateral position and the rest of the body aligned in strait lines, at 90 degree angles to the line of gravity.   So, don’t despair if you are experiencing arthritis pain – the healing power of your body is amazing!  You just need to know what to do and we’re here to help.

 

 

BELIEVE IN YOUR BODY!

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In case you think that we posture people never injure ourselves or have pain, I have a story for you…

I was cutting firewood last week-end, moving logs so I could cut them with my trusty hand saw.  Some of you might even be happy to know that while moving a particularly large log, I felt my low back strain, and being a guy, I had to finish my task so I just kept going the rest of the afternoon.  By the end of the day my left low back was screaming at me and I could hardly straighten up!

Now, here is where doing what I do gives me an advantage.  Unlike most people, I did not reach for the Advil or think that I had herniated a disk nor think I should just take it easy and go to bed.  I got down on the floor and did my menu – 10 Egoscue e-cises and my back felt 75% better!  I did supine groin stretch, had dinner and then went to bed.

Next morning, I was still stiff and it was difficult to bend over.  I poured my coffee, had some breakfast and did my menu again.  Again, I felt much better and went on to work.  Throughout the day I felt some twinges in that same spot and when I could, I did a few simple e-cises.  When I got home, I did a couple of e-cises, did the tower and then off to bed. 

Upon waking on day two, my back was stiff again but less than before.  I did my menu and the pain was gone!  Throughout the next day, I moved around as usual, bending, twisting – no pain.  One and a half days after straining my back and its back to normal!

That’s how resilient the body is when you give it half a chance!  We all like to do different things and in doing those things, stuff may happen.  If you are doing your menu fairly regularly, you have the tools to handle most any kind of problem that can occur. 

Believe in your body!  It has an amazing inherent strength and ability to heal.  Trust your intuition about what you can do to help yourself – as you listen to your body, you will begin to know.  If something like this happens to you and you’re not quite sure what to do, give us a call and we’ll direct you. This is where we can help.  That’s what we do – give you the tools to re-connect with your physical self, get yourself out of pain and believe in your body.

 

 

AWARENESS = HEALTH

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AWARENESS = HEALTH

The human body is a miraculous system.  It has an innate ability to heal itself if we just pay attention to the messages it sends us.  Some messages are easier than others …when we are hot, we sweat; when we are cold, we shiver but when we feel pain, it might be hard to figure out why.

What is the best way to pay attention to the messages that our body is sending us?  Be aware.  It may take a little practice because we are busy, we are overworked and overstressed, we are stoic and we brush aside feelings, experiences, pain, as well as the good stuff because we have things to do.  Well, until we can’t do them anymore.  Because we didn’t heed the signs of things to come, we didn’t experience the pleasures or the pain…we were unaware.   

Pay attention to your pain.  Is it sharp or dull? Is it constant or brought on by certain movements?  What time of day is it?  Be aware. At Pain Free we are posture people.  We understand that joint pain is the body’s message that muscles are out of balance and are pulling the skeletal system out of alignment.  When we are out of alignment, then some muscles get too tight and painful, some atrophy and joints no longer line up properly causing them to wear down compressing the nerves.  Ouch!

If we automatically take pain medication, then we lose important information that our body is sending us.  We are no longer aware of movements that change or decrease the pain which makes it impossible to correct the underlying cause. The Egoscue method provides awareness techniques that enable you determine what is going on in your body and help us create a program to get you back to optimal alignment and out of pain. These are techniques you will keep for the rest of your life!

Practice awareness in all aspects of your life.   Focus on some simple things – as you are walking outdoors, feel the wind in your face, feel your leg muscles tighten, feel the rhythm of your arms swinging; when you are getting ready for your day, really feel the hot shower water hit your body, take a deep breath and let your muscles relax in the steam;  at the end of your day relish each bite of food at dinner and if you are sharing dinner with someone, listen, engage in conversation, enjoy the company.

Instead of rushing through everything to get to the next thing, slow down and experience, enjoy, listen, and feel this amazing life – including the pain.  Awareness is the first step to becoming pain free, reclaiming health and living your life to the fullest.