If you have stubborn shoulder pain, shoulder impingement, or a history of rotator cuff issues you should work on the assumption that they are being caused by your posture. The overwhelming majority of shoulder pain and injury complaints are caused by postural issues which create chronic strain in the muscle and soft tissues of the shoulder.
Beyond the obvious necessity of strengthening the rotator cuff itself, in most cases of shoulder pain, it is also necessary to strengthen the postural muscles in the upper back and behind the shoulder blade. By gradually correcting your posture, using focused and deliberate activation of the muscles at the back of the shoulder it is possible to resolve the underlying postural imbalances that lead to shoulder pain. The secret to success in this venture is in careful coaching and persistently careful execution of movements that correct the habits and weaknesses tied up in poor posture.
Our hands and forearms do an incredible amount of work in our lifetimes and that’s exactly what they are designed for. The problem for many of us however is the type of work that our hands and forearms are expected to do.
Your outdoor living and agricultural ancestors consistently used their hands and forearms for a wide range of jobs and activities, such is life in the fresh air. You on the other hand more than likely use your hands and forerarms a lot. If however, you are the typical urban human, 90% or more of what you do with your hands and forearms sits in the ‘fine motor’ end of the activity; spectrum. While you may play some sport or do some gardening here and there for the most part you don’t use the full capacity or stretch of your hands and forearms the same way your ancestors would have done. The effect of all this high volume but ‘light’ use is tightening and weakening of the tendons on the wrist and elbow.
Even the most stubborn, painful, and limiting cases of RSI, tennis elbow and golfers elbow will improve with the right rehabilitation exercise processes. The secret to successfully achieving some lasting relief is to know how to gradually increase the strength and flexibility of your forearm and wrist tendons, without making yourself sore!
It is no secret that having a strong core is beneficial for most if not all back pain sufferers. The deep muscles of the trunk provide high tech dynamic support to the delicate spinal bones which is essential for lifelong prevention of pain and injury prevention in the delicate spinal tissues.
There is however an ‘interesting’ fact hiding in wait for anyone who wants to jump into a gym routine and tackle the weakness in their core. Throwing yourself into a heavy routine of planks, swiss ball work, and sit-ups only works for the minority of back pain sufferers, and in fact only usually for the ones without serious issues.
If you have a significant history of back pain and weakness in your core it basically means that you have lost not only strength but coordination of some very deep and very important muscles. The reality for most back pain sufferers is that they need to learn some fairly specialised exercises that isolate and address this significant health issue. If it was as easy as jumping into a gym routine there would be a lot less back pain in the world than there is. We provide in depth and highly focused coaching sessions that teach-back pain sufferers how to isolate their core. This approach can create dramatic and life-altering changes based on little more than 10 minutes a day of extreme focus on the RIGHT muscles… it does take some time and effort though.
There are 2 areas of the human body that suffer with significant muscle weakness in the majority of modern humans, the muscle group at the back of the shoulder and the muscle group at the back of the hip. It is no coincidence that these are extremely common locations for pain in the body.
Modern urban surfaces are extremely hard and flat, this is highly conducive to muscle wasting in the human hip and the human gluteal muscles. When we lived in the big outdoors, in bare feet on variable terrain our hip and gluteal muscles had a daily workout that the urban environment completely deprives them of.
This is a major part of the reason so many older people have issues with their hips. Our rehabilitation exercise programs for hip pain sufferers involve functional exercises that target the deeper kinds of weakness that cause stubborn hip pain.
The IT Band is basically a giant expansive tendon that gives the hip and gluteal muscles the anchor they need to maintain alignment of your leg when you bear weight. This is a big job and the IT Band is susceptible to irritation if your lower limb mechanics are not up to scratch.
IT Band syndromes are more often than not caused by ‘pronation’ or ‘rolling in’ of the foot during the weight bearing phase of your walking cycle. Like hip problems, this is another complaint that is largely a byproduct of living on very hard and very flat surfaces.
The correct mix of strengthening the gluteal and quadriceps muscles combined with breaking up scar tissue in the IT Band itself is usually the key to receiving this annoying and debilitating condition.
The human ankle on the face of it is somewhat of an engineering marvel, it bears more weight than any other major joint in the body and yet it has almost no immediate muscular support. Both the hip and the knee have a reasonable muscle bulk to provide extra support during weight bearing. Part of the ankle’s secret is stiffness and rigidity, the less movement there is at a joint the more stable it is. The second secret to your ankle’s seemingly miraculous strength is the support it receives from the muscles of your hip and knee.
The most important and active support system to rehabilitate in people who suffer with ankle pain and ankle sprains is that of the muscle groups in the upper leg and hip. These muscle groups clamp down hard on your thigh and shin bones to maintain ankle alignment when you stand, walk and run. This is not common knowledge which partly explains why sprained ankles are the most common of all sports injuries by far. It may also explain why ankle sprains have been shown in research to be a major threat to the longevity of countless sporting careers.
The sole (plantar surface) of the human foot takes a great deal of punishment over the course of a lifetime. Your heels crash down onto concrete and paving slabs thousands of times a day and millions of times a year and in most of us, they do so without complaint.
The primary reason that some of us end up suffering with heel pain, arch pain, and plantar fasciitis while others don’t is to do with strength and alignment of the lower limb. If you have good strong stabiliser muscles throughout your lower legs, and you maintain good alignment when you walk, the strain of weight bearing is evenly spread across the sole of your foot. If you have a pattern of weakness that causes your arch to collapse (one of the common patterns that lead to foot pain and plantar fasciitis) pressure can build up in certain parts of the sole and you will develop inflammation, scar tissue, and pain. A major part of the solution to this unpleasant and frustrating state of affairs is strength based rehabilitation exercise for your lower limbs.
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tobias@severnclinics.co.nz
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