Pain Free Performance — Egoscue Certified

Posture Alignment Therapists, Certified by Egoscue University

Functional movement

Moving into the New Year!

by

A new year brings opportunity for new beginnings. Many of us look at January as a start date for change and for removing bad habits from our lives. What if we viewed this new decade as an opportunity to add something positive to our lives? This could be adding an Egoscue e-cise menu to your life to correct your joint position or choosing to do your Egoscue more regularly. When we add positive health choices to our life, even once a week, our body and our health change immensely.

In our culture, going to the gym the first month of the new year is a tradition for many. Many of us believe “moving more” is “exercising more”. This year, we’d like to encourage you change the way you think about movement. Moving more could be taking breaks every twenty minutes from sitting or standing at work. Take a walk around the office or out to the mailbox.  Moving more could be sitting on the floor to watch tv at night instead of collapsing into our couch or comfy chair. The more resistant surface of the floor encourages increased blood flow – seems crazy, but this is sooo good for your body! And, it’s so simple.

When we move in any which way, our bones our nourished and joints have enhanced flexibility. If your goal is to be pain free or enhance your health this new year, consider adding more movement to your life outside of the gym. Be creative. There are no rules to how you have to move just move as often as possible!

The Eight Laws of Physical Health

by

**This is a condensed version of The Eight Laws of Physical Health posted on the Egoscue University website.

THE EIGHT LAWS

I think we can all agree that the majority of laws are in place to protect us.  When it comes to the body, we have laws in place as well.  Eight of them, actually.  Pete Egoscue talks about them in his book, Pain Free.  Not only does he go in-depth about the Eight Laws, but gives you the Egoscue perspective on posture and pain.  Egoscue’s laws are a great way to understand how everything in the body works together.

  1. VERTICAL LOADING: Gravity is necessary for health. In order for gravity to exert a positive and dynamic influence on the body, the skeleton must be vertically aligned in its posture.

 

  1. DYNAMIC TENSION: A state of constant tension exists between the front of the body and the back.  The posterior portion is responsible for the erection of the body and the anterior is responsible for the flexion, or bending forward, of the body.  Neither activity can be performed correctly and healthily without this action.

[Read more…] about The Eight Laws of Physical Health

Set In Our Ways

by

The modern era has provided us with many benefits. Enhanced technology has changed our health care, our connections with one another, and increased our access to opportunities we would not have had without it. We see the changes with our children and their relationships with their peers. As technology changes our lives, we adapt socially and our bodies physically adapt.

Most of us have had periods in our life that require us to commute long distances or work in front of a screen. In order to live our lives, we frequently sit. Sitting or holding any position for an extended period of time changes our muscles, our joints and our cardiovascular system. These changes can decrease blood flow throughout our body and make our muscles atrophy. When we sit or hold any position for too long, some muscles shorten and other muscles stretch. Our body begins to adapt to the improper muscle length change which pulls our joints out of alignment. That’s when the pain begins.

At Pain Free, we use the Egoscue method that considers the whole body and the relationship of all muscles and joints to each other. We understand that a patient’s health history and movement history has created adaptations and changes in their musculoskeletal system. These changes have affected their body’s mobility, blood flow, and led to pain. This could be back pain, knee pain, hip pain, foot pain, or any part of the body that has had to adapt to hours of holding a position. With time, we are able to realign the body and nourish muscles that support the body. When muscles work the way they were designed to, we are pain free!

What’s Causing Your Back Pain??

by

When it comes to back pain, there is no classic case. Clients come to us with different reasons for their back pain including: muscle spasms, fusions, herniated discs, impinged nerves, spondylolysis, or scoliosis. All of these medical diagnoses are a result of a muscular imbalance. Although everyone’s back pain does not look the same, many of these patients have a something in common: a misaligned pelvis.

When the body is misaligned, it is forced to adapt just to function. This means that parts of our body are doing jobs that they were never meant to do. When the pelvis is tilted (anterior, posterior, elevated or rotated) it changes the curve of our spine. This is important because the curves of our spine are designed to absorb shock and prevent us from feeling pain!

So how do we fix this? By providing the body with the exercise or stimulus it needs, the alignment of the pelvis will slowly be restored. This will allow your pelvis to be balanced again in a neutral and functional position which restores the curve of the spine.

Getting your pelvis in the correct position is not where we stop. We have to train the muscles around the pelvis to continue to hold the correct position. If your pelvis is misaligned, it’s likely that your gluteal muscles, (those big muscles in your behind) are not working the way they were designed. By retraining those muscles to work as they were intended, we can help restore the stability to your pelvis, realign the spine and get rid of the back pain.

The beauty in restoring alignment and function to the body utilizing the Egoscue Method, is that it is lasting and preventative. As Egoscue therapists, we know that we are providing our clients with the tools they need to not only get out of pain, but also to prevent future issues!

 

The Whole Picture of Being Pain Free

by

As Egoscue certified therapists, when we look at the body, we do not isolate it into individual bones or parts. We hear our clients when they identify the quality and site of their pain whether it’s knee pain, back pain, hip pain, or foot pain. This information is used as a tool to provide appropriate care for our client, but we continue to treat the whole body. In order to eliminate pain long term, we must work to correct the imbalance of the body as a whole unit.

When our client’s come to Pain Free Performance, we encourage them to “listen to their bodies”. This means to acknowledge when they have pain, to not complete exercises that bring on pain, and identify changes within their body after completing a musculoskeletal exercise.

In an Egoscue therapy session, we might encourage our client to stand with their backs against the wall and have their heels, hips, shoulders, and head touching the wall for two minutes. For some clients, not all of their body parts will be able to touch the wall in the beginning. During these two minutes, a client could feel that their body is falling forward, that the muscles behind their knee could be stretching, or they could notice that their head is forward. After two minutes of holding this exercise, we watch the client walk and ask them to consider if anything in their gait is different which could include:

Are they lighter on their feet?

Are they standing straighter?

Has their knee pain decreased?

Do they feel equal weight bear in both feet?

As therapists, we are looking for a change in the function of their body. We are assessing whether the exercise restored the client’s ankle function or created a lighter load in the client’s steps. In the beginning pain level or quality might not change, but it is through restored function of the musculoskeletal system that our clients will not only have improved posture, but improved quality of life without limitations. Balance and restored function of the musculoskeletal system are the key to becoming pain free.

 

Mechanotransduction….

by

Have you ever heard of Mechanotransduction? You’re probably saying to yourself, “No, and why do I care?” Because, understanding the meaning gives us one more important reason to keep moving!

Mechanotransduction is the physiological process in which cells sense and respond to mechanical loads.

Again, you might be thinking “So what?”

Basically, what it means is that when you walk, bend, dance or move in any way, your cells are being squished. This bending and squishing of your cells causes the body to convert the cellular response to create structural change.

Why does this matter? In the same way it matters for us to eat healthy foods. The nutrients from foods communicate with our cells and cause them to behave in a particular way. Movement creates a cellular response that can make a weak bone become a strong bone in response to the appropriate “load” through the joints. Your cells respond to balanced movement the way they respond to a healthy diet.

“Feed” your body at the cellular level by moving to stay aligned, balanced and pain free!

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!

Cartilage Regeneration

by

The body has an innate ability to heal. What does that really mean? It means that our body produces over 500 billion new cells a day – without conscious direction from us. Cuts heal, broken bones mend, muscle tissue builds, and brain cells, cardiac muscle and, yes, cartilage regenerate!

The key to a healthy healing body is the environment we provide it. Consider your nutrition, how much you move, if you’re getting enough sleep, how you’re managing stress and how aligned your posture is.

If you consistently work on all of these aspects of good health, your body responds. In order for cell production to be optimum, each of these needs to be happening simultaneously. I want to focus on how all of this enables cartilage regeneration, from an alignment standpoint. Maybe you’ve been told your knee (or hip, ankle, wrist) is “bone on bone” and you think the only answer is a replacement. Not true!

Research shows that under the right conditions cartilage can regenerate like any other tissue in the body. The first question to ask if you are told that you are “bone on bone” is why is that joint wearing away? Where did the cartilage go that is supposed to be there? It’s all about the position of the joint and the uneven force going through it as you move. Once the joint position is corrected, the body will produce more tissue to repair itself. Take a look at these before and after x-rays:
Look at the narrow joint space (bone on bone) on your left
knee pain
One year later after a postural alignment regime. Notice the uniform joint spaces!
repaired knee without surgery
Here at Pain Free Performance we watch the way bodies move and stand. We determine if body weight is equal front to back, side to side. We evaluate the position of all major joints looking for proper loading (head over neck, over shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle.) If there is disparity, the body is not functioning properly. There are muscle imbalances causing an uneven force in the joints which creates friction. The friction wears down the cartilage. The joint becomes a victim of the imbalance and bone surfaces begin to wear away. Bone on bone.

What is the remedy? Posture alignment. And I’m not talking about your mom telling you to “pull those shoulders back”. I’m talking about retraining muscles to do the job they are intended to do. Why?…because muscles pull bones. The bones are out of alignment but they are innocent bystanders because the muscles are either doing too much or too little. At Pain Free we unravel what the muscles are currently doing and give you the tools to get them working together again. When the muscles that propel the joints are working correctly again this provides increased blood flow to the area, and allows more movement. And, yes, this gives the cartilage an opportunity to regenerate. It’s not magic but it’s amazing and possible for you too.