Pain Free Performance — Egoscue Certified

Posture Alignment Therapists, Certified by Egoscue University

exercise

Moving Toward Being Pain Free

by

We often work with clients experiencing significant changes in their quality of life due to pain. Many are having pain for the first time and don’t understand why. They progressively and reluctantly remove the activities they love that seem to increase pain. Ironically this leads to no longer being able to sit, stand or move without discomfort. The catch is, even in pain, our bodies are meant to move. Ultimately, the body moves the way you move it or, doesn’t move because you don’t move it.

If you have been a cardio-queen, spending an hour doing the elliptical every morning and then go off to work sitting for eight hours, that’s a problem. Perhaps you’re a jogger and pound the pavement on the weekends but lay low during the week. Both of these scenarios can cause pain over time. Parts of your body and muscles are deprived of oxygen for all that time you are sitting or sedentary. Most people are out of alignment and can unwittingly create more dysfunction with activity. It creeps up on you and then one day, as our clients describe above, you are in pain for the first time. You have back pain, hip pain, foot pain, neck pain or shoulder pain and you don’t know what to do! You hurt, so you stop the morning exercise, the running, the elliptical. Inactivity is not the answer, but the right activity to correct your alignment is key to healing your pain.

At Pain Free, our job is to evaluate each client’s body, to diagnose what is truly causing the pain and reintroduce appropriate movement. This prescribed movement restores alignment, naturally removing pain which reunites people with the activities they enjoy! Let us join you on this journey back to moving well and doing the things you love to do.

Getting Back to Exercise

by

Often when clients are feeling better, they want to get back to their exercise routine. In order to create a change in posture, we ask that people hold off on weight lifting or repetitive exercise in the beginning so as not to strengthen any unresolved dysfunction. We completely understand that when the body is becoming aligned and pain has decreased, you are eager to get back to a more physical and active lifestyle.

So the question is: how do you exercise and remain pain free?

If there is an activity you love and want to get back to, you should try it! Listen to your body while doing the activity. If you have concerns about what you feel, acknowledge it. Your body will give you a signal if it is resisting, like pain or restricted range of motion. Our rule of thumb is to complete your Egoscue menu first, in order to align your body the best you can prior to your workout. Always follow up your activity or workout with a few exercises that your therapist recommends for your body or even repeat your menu. This will allow you to the live the life you love and remain pain free.

Remember, the best exercise equipment is your own body. Just walking puts your body in dynamic motion and allows your 200 bones, 230 joints, and 600 muscles to become energized! Not only will walking increase your aerobic response and nourish your joints, but it will maintain something called the “cross crawl pattern” within the brain that’s necessary for maintaining balance.

If you have any questions about getting back to your active lifestyle and remaining pain free, our Egoscue Certified Posture Alignment Specialists at Pain Free Performance will keep you on the right path!

THE RIGHT MOVES

by

When we hear about healthy lifestyles from our healthcare professionals, three things are always stressed: eating healthy foods, getting adequate sleep and exercising regularly. As you know, we’re into healthy lifestyles at Pain Free and we talk a lot about total body alignment and movement.

Culturally, we are pretty sedentary with only bursts of movement or exercise adding up to maybe 1 or 2 hours a day. Research is now showing that doesn’t meet our body’s daily movement requirements. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MOVEMENT AND EXERCISE.

EXERCISE typically consists of repetitive motion in a specific area of the body for a specific amount of time. Think treadmill, for example. Our heart rate’s up, one foot in front of the other over and over. We drive to the gym, walk or run on the treadmill for an hour, then we drive back home or work. What are we doing the rest of the day?

MOVEMENT is leaving our car at home and walking to the store to buy our groceries. Our heart rate is up, we’re working our lower body and utilizing our upper body carrying groceries home. Now, that might not be feasible for all of us but it illustrates how our bodies are meant to function. Even if we can’t walk to the store, we just need to change things up a bit to add natural movement back into our lives.

HERE ARE OUR TOP FIVE TIPS TO OPTIMIZE THE WAY YOU MOVE EVERY DAY:

1.) START YOUR DAY MOVING
Begin the day with your Egoscue ecises , take a walk with your coffee, stretch while you read the paper, or step on the trampoline while you watch the news. The more you move, the more your brain will encourage movement throughout the day.

2.) PARK AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE
We hear a lot about 10,000 steps. Instead of stressing over a number, seek any opportunity for movement – all types of movement. Park further away, walk to your destinations, take the stairs, work-in a zumba class – whatever you love to do. The movement will add up. Lasting results begin with subtle changes in the way you move through your life!

3.) CREATE A MORE DYNAMIC WORK STATION
People ask us if standing work desks are really healthier than sitting. Absolutely! Also think about working from the floor, at a coffee table, on a pillow or in any other way you can imagine. If you can’t do this at the office, try it at home. Stand awhile, sit awhile. The take away is, this encourages your body to respond and move in the way it was intended. Your joints will be more fluid, increase your functionality and keep you moving well for a long, long time!

4.) MOVE WHILE YOU WORK
Why not encourage natural movement while taking care of business? Take a walk down the hall or up and down the stairs while you return phone calls. Your heart rate will increase, your feet will be happy, and your mind will be clear and rejuvenated from this much needed movement break. Stand a stretch every hour or so. Keep moving.

5.) SIT ON THE FLOOR
Home after a hard day, maybe you’re planning to catch up on your favorite Netflix series. Instead of plopping on the couch, try the floor. Put your back up against the couch. Cross your legs, or put them straight out in front of you, or pull your knees up to your chest. Better yet, do all of these periodically! Floor sitting allows your hips and knees to bend at angles that are lost in our culture. Using the floor, instead of chairs or the couch, stimulates your muscles to be more flexible, stronger, and more efficient.

It’s not movement OR exercise. While it’s important to know the difference, fill your life with both. As Postural Alignment Therapists at Pain Free Performance, certified by Egoscue University, we teach total body alignment to create your very best function without pain. Incorporate movement in your life the same way. More movement, of all kinds. All of your functional muscles and the resulting properly aligned joints need to be used all day every day in as many ways as possible. Total alignment, total movement, for a totally enjoyable healthy life!

SPRING IS HERE!

by

Spring in Charlottesville is here and it’s gorgeous out there!  Our clients are enjoying these beautiful days outside in their gardens, resuming their outdoor walking and running regime, or spending their weekends on long bike rides.  Inevitably, they ask us, “I don’t want to tweak my back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain with my activities so are there e-cises that I should do before I….?

The answer is always: YES!

Your Egoscue menu is designed to make your body more functional, and there are specific exercises that should be done before and after you complete an activity.  These exercises will work on correcting and aligning your joints while preventing pain symptoms often associated with that activity.  This will keep the back pain, knee pain, and shoulder pain at bay so that you can do the sports you love! Movement is essential!  We love that our clients want to be active!  Let’s keep your body healthy while in motion!

If you have questions about e-cises for your activity give us a buzz!  Have fun out there!

Cart before the Horse

by

The Cart before the Horse….

The other day I got a call from a client who was in such excruciating back pain that she couldn’t make her appointment. She travels from quite a distance and she said she could not get comfortable enough to sit in the car that long. I spoke with her on the phone and gave her some e-cises to do. She called back about an hour later and her pain was significantly better.

When I asked her what she’d been doing before her pain began, I got an earful! She had been shaking out rugs, digging in the garden, mowing, cleaning her house for an upcoming event including a lot of up and down the stairs. When we talked about her Egoscue menu, she said she’d been doing well with it. I learned later that she had not done her Eogscue program before she started her busy and very physical day. Aha, therein lies the problem.

She should have done her Egoscue program BEFORE beginning her activities. Let me tell you why….

The sole purpose of performing an Egoscue program is to change the alignment of the body, creating a pain free body. When muscles aren’t working properly, after an injury or surgery for example, they become imbalanced. They either work too hard and become overly tight or don’t work at all and become loose. Muscles are responsible for keeping our bones in place so both scenarios cause the muscles to pull the bones out of alignment. This creates wear and tear on the joints and pain. Doing the individualized Egoscue program you are prescribed gets those muscles back to doing what they’re supposed to do, which puts the bones back where they belong. If my client had done her Egoscue prior to working so hard, her body would have been prepared – less wear and tear on the joints, less pain.

So, the very best way to enjoy your Egoscue and your new found alignment is to DO YOUR EGOSCUE MENU BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR ACTIVITIES! It is our goal to get you back to doing what you love and what you need to do! The body needs to be aligned before you start pushing it. It is the best way to avoid pain, avoid injury and begin to strengthen your alignment –not strengthen your dysfunction. Does that make sense?

So, put the horse (Egoscue) before the cart (your life’s activities) and make your Egoscue menu part of your early morning routine! Your body will thank you.  

Golf Exercises

by

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!

The Best of Both Worlds

by

We humans are social creatures, so we love doing things in groups.  We learn better in groups so any kind of class is a wonderful idea to most of us!  That is especially true for exercise classes. Having people around is stimulating, encouraging and helps us go beyond what we think our limitations are.  This is also true for our classes using the Egoscue Method for postural alignment.

Some of you know about Egoscue from coming to Pain Free Performance because you were in pain and could not find a way out.  Back pain, neck pain, ankle pain, shoulder pain, knee pain – we’ve seen it all!  That is the essence of Egoscue – total body alignment that restores function and relieves pain! 

Egoscue class is a great way to connect with other folks who are enjoying the benefits of a pain free aligned body.  Keep in mind class cannot be specific to each participant’s particular issues.  Most classes meet a couple of times a week and your body needs more training to re-adapt to proper muscular balance for posture.  You guys that have your Egoscue exercise menus know that a body needs the daily reminder of what those muscles are designed to do!

For those of you who haven’t visited us, this postural alignment work is individualized and specific to you, your body, your pain and dysfunction.  Exercises are prescribed (called menus) that have a sequence of muscular activation and/or deactivation best suited to your body.  There are no two bodies alike and there are rarely identical menus.  Class should not be viewed as a “one size fits all” approach to body alignment and pain relief – it should be another fun activity that you participate in because you’re feeling great after doing your menu!

Doing your individual menu gives you a wonderful opportunity to tune into your own body and inner self.  Listening to your body while performing your Egoscue menu is a perfect meditation time or just simply quiet alone time.   If you’re going to class but you don’t have a menu…let me encourage you to get one.  It will change your life and it will make all of the other stuff possible.  

Going to class is great!!!!  Keep at it!  Class, hiking, biking, running, swimming, tennis – move and enjoy what you love to do — your body will like the extra movement and extra attention.  And, do your menu also.  You can have the best of both worlds!