Pain Free Performance — Egoscue Certified

Posture Alignment Therapists, Certified by Egoscue University

muscle imbalance

Painful Hip Flexors

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It’s not uncommon for us to hear our clients mention waking up with tight, sore hip flexors. Hip tightness can occur for many reasons. Excessive sitting can cause the muscles to relax and deactivate becoming progressively weaker and shorter, creating pain.

Poor posture habits can create a structural imbalance which will cause an uneven pulling of muscles.  No matter the reason, tightness in the hip flexors will lead to decreased movement in the hip and change the way we walk, stand and sit. Our pelvic position will be out of line because the hip flexors are pulling the pelvis forward. This changes the load of our body and creates instability in our gait. Over time, the uneven load and misalignment leads to inflammation, arthritis and other degenerative changes causing pain.  What to do?

At Pain Free we will evaluate you individually to see what is going on with your body that’s creating the issue.  Part of the prescribed plan will retrain those hip flexors to let go, get back to their intended length and tension to eventually re-establish the entire body’s alignment restoring proper gait.  All of that equals being pain free!

Try this and see if you are able to notice a release:

Stand with your back against the wall. When your hips are touching the wall, your thighs and kneecaps will begin to release. If your thighs want to engage, stay in this position for 2-5 minutes until your thighs release and the backs of your legs begin to work.

Muscle Memory and Egoscue

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What makes the Egoscue method work so well compared to other treatments? The Egoscue method is different because it utilizes the basic way our body learns and remembers movement. When you do your Egoscue exercises each morning, you activate muscles in the correct way to align your body.
Motor memory, or muscle memory, allows the cells within our bodies to coordinate our movements, muscles, and brain to create the desired activity. Each time you move, your body remembers it. When movements are done repetitively, your body keeps track and creates the “new normal”. Science shows that it takes 90 days of that new repetitive motion to have the memory remain without prompting. With Egoscue we are introducing proper stimulus to create equal and bilateral activity in the muscles. This retraining process is amazing because it means we have the ability to change and heal ourselves!
In comparison, when a person goes to the chiropractor, they align their bodies through an adjustment of the bones. Without the memory in the muscles, the skeletal alignment will not stay because muscles pull bones. This creates a need for frequent follow-up appointments. With the Egoscue method, our clients are able to retrain the musculature to hold their bones in the correct position. This is why the Egoscue method is a therapy that creates lasting change and is not just temporary symptom relief.
Utilizing Egoscue, our clients are able to create new alignment with noticeable improvement in pain reduction, movement, balance, and quality of life!

Moving Toward Being Pain Free

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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.

What is Different About Egoscue?

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People ask us all the time “how is Egoscue different?” At Pain Free Performance, we want to get down to the root of your pain. Egoscue therapy looks at the entire body and determines what joints are out of alignment and therefore, are not mobilizing correctly. When this happens, other muscles will try to create the movement for the weaker muscles. This is what pulls the joint out of the right position.

Egoscue looks at each area of the body and determines which muscles are too tight or overworking. Through gait analysis and functional testing, Egoscue therapy can determine how your body is moving. Then the fun part begins. Our Egoscue University trained therapists will work with you to determine how to release the overworked muscles and how to wake up the muscles that are weaker and not supporting the joints. In other therapies, like traditional physical therapy, therapists work to strengthen the weakened joint, but overlook the compensations from different parts of the body. Egoscue therapists understand that your spine rotates because your right foot is turned out. Egoscue therapists at Pain Free Performance take it a step further and notice the over developed muscles on the right side of your spine. Their Egoscue training promotes further testing to release those muscles before they re-balance the rest of the body.

Want to get back to the life you had before pain? Live the life where you could move naturally and not in order to avoid the pain? Try Egoscue therapy at Pain Free Performance and let’s uncover the root of your pain.

Cartilage Regeneration

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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.

Movement Challenge

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Our bodies are meant to move! Walk, run, jump, kneel, stretch, reach, twist, squat, hang – the more we do these activities, the more aligned and healthier our bodies. You’ve probably heard the “sitting is the new smoking” catch phrase? I want to challenge you to go a step further than just standing up to understand what exactly our bodies need. When we fill our days with the activities listed above, amazing things happen. The movements keep the muscles in our hips elongated; encourage a mobile straight spine, our shoulders fall more easily back into place supporting a strong neck and balanced head.

We’ve got it easy these days compared to our “hunter-gatherer” ancestors. The luxuries that resulted from the Industrial Revolution have presented us with an unforeseen dilemma. With all the conveniences and less to do to get what we need, how do we continue to stay active? The answer I often hear from clients is “I exercise one or two hours every day!” Great! Maybe you’re like me; I love to work up a sweat. I want to be fit. As a former fitness center owner, I cannot imagine not having exercise in my life. I love to hike and kayak with my family. My husband is an avid biker. We exercise, but we need more movement.

After years working in physical therapy, and going on twelve years as a Posture Alignment Specialist, Certified by Egoscue University, I love helping people restore the alignment of their joints, become more functional and relieve their pain. So, you might wonder why I’m talking so much about movement.

Exercise and movement are very different things. Exercise is one important piece of the puzzle – how you move the rest of the day is just as important. Alignment is key. Exercise often works one area of the body through focused repetitive motion. There are great benefits yet at times we are inadvertently compromising other areas of the body. With repetitive exercise we are asking our bodies to function in ways they were not originally designed to function. The body wants and is able to perform with complete range of motion.

When thinking of movement, think of activities more people did generations ago: squatting while harvesting farmland, walking barefoot on uneven terrain, carrying items up and down hills, sitting on the floor. Movement works all parts of the body in the way it was intended to move. Movement is important because it nourishes the whole body by promoting blood flow, improving overall circulation – keeping us strong.

Alignment is important because when you move, the forces that go through your joints determine if your body is functioning properly. Think of your body like a car. If your car tires have worn unevenly, your car will pull to one side. You go and buy new tires and get the car aligned in order for it to drive smoothly. If the muscles in your body are imbalanced, it will create pulls that change the way you move. Correct the muscle imbalances and you improve the function of your body. Improving function means you’re moving better and probably moving more.

ALIGNMENT MATTERS AND MOVEMENT MATTERS.

The challenge is how to incorporate more movement into our daily lives. Awareness is the key! Just being aware of the amount of movement in your day will help you come up with ways to move more. Stand at your desk and roll your shoulders or do some toe raises. Squat down several times per day to pick things up. Walk on trails or hills rather than sidewalks and wear less rigid shoes for increased foot movement. Sit on the floor more while watching TV and notice how much more you move your body. Next time you take the kids to the park – YOU hang from the monkey bars too! Have fun with it. Challenge yourself. The more you move, the more you can move. Ask us next time you’re in Pain Free and we’ll give you some more amazing ideas!

THE RIGHT MOVES

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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!

SCOLIOSIS

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At our clinic, we see several clients a week with scoliosis – a curvature of the spine.  Some people are born with scoliosis and for most it develops in puberty when the muscles can’t keep up with the bones during this intense period of growth.  This muscle imbalance is what pulls the spine into an unnatural curve.  Scoliosis can be very painful and without intervention can worsen.  Our clients with scoliosis have often  tried  everything including bracing, rounds of physical therapy  and even spinal surgery placing Harrington rods in the back in an attempt to correct the curve of their spine.  Despite these methods, they continue to have pain in their body caused by this muscular imbalance.

When Egoscue was developed, the idea was simple: activate muscles to pull the bones into an aligned position. When the body is given the correct stimulus, the muscles will pull the bones into a straight position. When the bones are aligned, the friction on our joints when we move will be decreased. Your spine is subject to the same rules!  By rebalancing the muscles of your back, your spine will load correctly and decrease the curve of scoliosis.

During the initial evaluation, your Egoscue therapist will analyze the curve of the spine by taking photos, palpating the joint position, and completing functional tests to see how the body obtains a specific movement. This will allow your Egoscue therapist to not only feel and see the curve, but also to determine which muscles are overworking and which are not doing enough to align your body and your spine correctly.  Your Egoscue e-cise menu will have a series of exercises designed to activate the specific muscle groups in your body that are needed to decrease the curve of your spine. When your body – including your spine – is aligned and symmetrical it will move with ease and without pain!