In the following months, treatments that had previously barely touched the pain got Mark’s pain down to zero. And he was so shaken up by the whole experience that he even began the process of restoring strength to the muscles, which he continues with to this day.

Having had occasion to use Mark’s services years down the track, I can confirm his pain has thus far not returned.

As case studies go, Mark definitely represents a number of extremes. Extreme physical strain, extremely treatment-resistant pain, extremely fast recovery once the underlying issue was addressed, and most of all, extremely flat feet. Can I stress one more time how flat those feet were if I promise not to mention it again?

Another extreme that Mark’s case represents is extreme mechanical pain. His flat feet meant that his skeleton was functioning like a car with broken suspension and poor wheel alignment. All of which was playing out on the unnaturally hard industrialized terrain we call concrete floors.

Our feet evolved to compress into soft ground. Our ancestors walked on sand soil, leaf litter, and grasslands, while we now walk almost exclusively on very hard flat surfaces. When you walk on soft ground, it rises to meet the shape of the foot, and you leave a footprint. Mark had been born with very flat feet in the first place, but this lack of natural foot support had exacerbated this issue 10 fold. Once he had some flexible but supportive orthotics in, they did a good enough job of approximating the support and shock absorption of natural surfaces that the tension his body had been holding was able to unwind itself over a 2-week period. His pain went away after all those years because the cause of mechanical stress was removed. And his body switched off the pain signals because it was no longer perceiving a constant threat to the tissues.

Specific causes of mechanical pain include – poor postural habits – repetitive work tasks – being a couch potato – chronic emotional tension – flat feet – high arches – being heavy-footed –  overtraining – undertraining –  bad training habits – occupational overuse – wrong footwear – strange sleeping positions – obesity – too much sitting – too much driving – stressy jaw clenching – stress postures – teeth grinding – depressive postures – self-consciousness about being tall or having large breasts – bad workstations –  hard ground. To name a few.

Many mechanical pains are naturally traceable back to injury events. Research conducted in 1994 on over 300 Chinese professional athletes has shown that 59% suffered with long-term pain, weakness and relapses after ankle sprain injury. The researchers concluded that stubborn pain, persisting weakness and re-occurrence of sprained ankles was a major issue affecting the athletic careers of those studied. Many other studies have come to similar conclusions.

Many of the injuries we suffer leave us with residual scar tissue, muscle wasting and altered mechanics. Many injuries occur in body parts that were already compromised. Injuries also have the capacity to compromise the body in ways that makes it more sensitive to the above list of causal factors. When injuries combine with other mechanical factors, they form an ideal ingredient in the broader recipe for chronic pain.

If your tissues are exposed to repetitive strain, unhealthy reactions may eventually start to occur. These physical reactions can be viewed from 2 perspectives, depending on how closely you look at them.

To ‘the naked eye,’ mechanical pain reveals changes like – muscle weakness, muscle imbalances,  scar tissue, muscle spasms, joint stiffness, postural alterations & collapsed foot arches.

Under the microscope, mechanical pain reveals changes like – inflammation and alterations in body chemistry, tight muscle fibrils, microscopic adhesions, microscopic damage to collagen cells & fluid congestion.

The wisest way to view all of these physical reactions is as warning signs, not only of harm in real time but of potential trouble further down the track. This is, of course, how we should also view stubborn pain patterns in the body – as warnings!

It is wise to pay attention to biomechanical pain. Approach it as you might a mild toothache or plaque build-up on your teeth. Mild toothache and plaque build-up may be quite tolerable, but ignoring them over long periods of time seldom leads to desirable outcomes. Ignoring mechanical pain is a bit like that. Today’s most persistent aches and pains frequently herald the onset of tomorrow’s severe pain and disability.

Research has shown that genetic factors, lifestyle factors and past emotional trauma are known to determine the likelihood of us developing chronic pain. This is naturally in part due to the influence they have on the body’s mechanics. But it is also true that these variables influence the way our nervous systems behave.

The clue to the role of the nervous system in chronic pain is in the other predictive factors that those back pain researchers discovered. It is not just mechanical factors that predict issues like back pain. Depression, general anxiety, PTSD  and a fear of pain are all known to predict the likelihood of a patient suffering from chronic pain even more accurately than mechanical factors in some cases.