Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Live Pain Free!

neck pain

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.

 

 

EMBRACING THE TOWER! (Supine Groin Progressive in the Tower)

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Egoscue Tower ExerciseThe TOWER, as we affectionately call it, is truly an amazing piece of equipment.  It may look menacing but it should not be feared!  The tower helps to re-establish the functional chain reaction of muscles that we need in order to maintain good posture and be pain free.  It’s great because you just lie there and better posture happens just by lowering the leg through different positions!    Yes, it takes time to do it.   Because most of us don’t think anything is happening unless we’re DO-ing something, one might be skeptical that anything could be changing.  Just because you aren’t actively doing something doesn’t mean that the body is inactive. In the tower the body is actually very active while you just lay there!  Really.  For the musculoskeletal system, it’s like going on a long walk with everything working right — without any of your habitual compensations allowed to come into play.

At each level of the tower your hip flexor engages then releases, which then lets the pelvis drop back which then extends the back.  The shoulders open and the head and neck lengthen.  As the pelvis settles to the floor, there is a rotational component at the hip joint between the pelvis and thigh bone, the knee is extended straight which asks all the muscles of posterior leg to lengthen and equalize their pulls as they cross behind the knee.  The ankle stays in a close-packed position the whole time.  All of this happens at each level as you proceed down the tower, as the one leg gets lower in the tower the difference between the two halves of the pelvis gets greater.  This is what happens with each step we take, so in the tower you are spending an hour taking one perfect step.

This one simple exercise is great for all of us considering how much time we spend sitting.  It can lessen the effects of being at a desk at work or school all day or being in the car or on the couch for several hours. It has a cumulative effect – we’re all playing catch-up but soon you’ll be making deposits in your posture account.  It is an important exercise to help alleviate neck pain, back pain, hip pain and knee pain.  I’ve been doing Supine Groin Progressive for 20 years – since before the tower even existed.  I continue to include it in my menu several times a week and each time I finish in the evening, I feel so amazing the next morning I have to ask myself why I don’t do it every day!   So, if your Egoscue therapist suggests the exercise Supine Groin Progressive, I encourage you to consider investing in the time, the tower and yourself.

 

WHAT A PAIN IN THE NECK!!

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Maybe it was the fear generated around the recent storm or the stress of the upcoming holidays and shopping, but we have had an increase in the number of folks coming in with neck pain.  They are always surprised when we don’t do anything to their neck or give them anything to do to their neck.  It’s simple:  the neck is not the problem.  Your neck is the symptom but the problem is more likely a rounded upper back, or the shoulders hinged forward and one shoulder is higher than the other.  Either of those scenarios means that your pelvis is out of balance and out of position.

If you stand sideways in the mirror, there should be a straight vertical line from your ankles to knees to pelvis to shoulder to head.  When you don’t “load vertically” then you are unconsciously asking different muscles to do a job they weren’t designed to do. In the case of your neck, if your head is forward of that vertical line then you have been asking those neck muscles to hold up around 15 pounds!  You don’t ask your arm or shoulder to hold up a  bowling ball for more than a few seconds but that’s what your head sitting on your neck is like and you hold your head like that for hours!  Any wonder your neck hurts??

So, if your neck is hurting, it’s not your neck – it’s your posture.  Call us at Pain Performance and let us help you get your posture back in alignment.  You’ll be surprised at how many other aches and pains will disappear as well!

NECK AND SHOULDER PAIN RELIEF!!!

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Is your neck and shoulder pain becoming debilitating?  Perhaps you are constantly twisting your your head side to side, shrugging your shoulders, trying to find a neutral position to take you out of pain.  Maybe you try to stand up straighter, you get your spouse to rub your shoulders at the end of a long day, you take an Advil (or three), and it all helps – for a little while.  The next morning you have the same pain and you start all over again.  You wonder what you “did” that made you hurt.  Did you lift something too heavy, twist a funny way, reach for something, or was it sitting hunched over at your desk all day?  Most likely, even if one of these scenarios brought on your current discomfort, the real answer is found in one word:  balance, or in this case, imbalance!  Not the kind that the gymnast shows while traversing a balance beam, but the balance in your musculo-skeletal system, the alignment of your body.
How do you restore balance to your body and relieve your pain?  The Egoscue Method.  Pete Egoscue developed this method as a result of pain he suffered with after serving our country in Vietnam.  He was unable to find anything but temporary relief through typical channels; doctor visits, medication, traditional hands-on symptom based treatments.  Sound familiar?
Egoscue began thinking about the actual cause of his pain and determined that if the body is  aligned properly, it becomes pain free.  He also created this method to be a self-treatment approach — empowering all of us to keep our bodies in optimal alignment and function!
So, what is the Egoscue Method?  It is a series of positions, stretches and strengthening exercises that help reposition and realign your musculo-skeletal system.  This allows the load-bearing joints to line up along the line of gravity.  After a thorough evaluation by a trained Egoscue Certified therapist you are prescribed personalized programs for your body issues.   You actually train your body to rest in vertical alignment.  So, like breathing, you don’t have to think about standing up straight or moving a certain way — you just do!   As your body becomes aligned,  your pain subsides.
If you’d like to learn more, give us a call at 434-296-0600!  We even have  free screening appointments available if you’d like to see our studio space, meet us and learn more about Egoscue!
In Good Health,
Cindy Meyers