Where It Hurts is Not Why It Hurts

How an Egoscue-certified PAS can help you become (and stay!) pain-free

Greg Oden and the Portland Trailblazers - Why All the Injuries?

Great message from Egoscue Portland about this injury-prone NBA player, forner college basketball star Greg Oden.

http://egoscueportland.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/greg-oden/

Let’s look at why we get injured (especially non-impact injuries). Injuries are not accidents. We think of accidents as unavoidable or unpredictable. But injuries can be predicted and avoided. Let’s look at how this works.

First let’s talk about how the human body is designed. Humans are bi-peds – which means we walk on two feet. In order to do that we have to be balanced – meaning symmetrical left to right. In addition to that we have eight major load bearing joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders) that are designed to be vertically stacked one on top of the other. This allows us to absorb shock. When you look at this design you see 90-degree angles at all the load joints. When these 90-degree angles are violated the structural integrity of the body is compromised leading to pain and/or injury.

Proper posture front

Proper Posture Side

Let’s look at the knees. The knees are designed to point straight ahead in-line with your hips and ankles and vertically aligned one-on-top-of-the-other. If your right foot turns out and your right knee turns in and your left side lines up the way it’s designed to, which knee do you think you are going to injure? Yes, the right knee. It’s just basic physics – all about forces, action-reaction, friction, and stress. If joints line up correctly you easily distribute forces through the structures the way they are designed, the proper action-reaction in the bones and muscles occurs, and friction and stress on the body are minimal. Joints don’t line up? Hello friction, stress, pain and injury. Misaligned joints are injuries waiting to happen.

What’s cool is it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see postural imbalances. When we look at Greg Oden and his history, things become very clear: he’s been told his right leg is longer than the left (if I was able to look at him, we’d probably see that it’s actually a hip disparity (hip elevation/tilt imbalance) that is causing the leg to appear longer when it’s really not), his feet turn out (evert), his right shoulder is lower than his left, and his knees do not line up with his ankles and hips.

Greg Oden

All of these postural imbalances are setting his body up for pain and injury – which is exactly what he’s had. Look at the list:

  • bulging disc in back
  • right wrist
  • right ankle
  • right foot
  • right hand
  • right knee
  • left knee

So why are almost all the injuries to his right side?

It starts with how his body is out of alignment. His right hip is higher which throws his body off balance causing his upper body to compensate. We see that in his right shoulder rotating forward and down. His lower body is also affected which we see in his feet turning out and no longer lining up with his knees (they should point straight ahead in-line with each other).

The disc injury was from the uneven pressure on his vertebrae and discs caused by the misaligned hips.

The wrist and hand injuries were exacerbated by the right shoulder being forward and down – meaning the shoulder could not help the elbow, wrist and hand properly.

The right knee has not had help from his right hip for a long time and his feet turn out enough to compromise their function.

Why the left knee now?

Good question. But I think it comes down to compensation. His body is not balanced and has been compensating because of the imbalances and because of the injuries and these imbalances put his left knee under increased stress – enough to fracture his patella while jumping.

They are already saying the surgery was successful…but that only fixes the symptom not the cause. He has to correct his posture if he wants to recover to 100% and avoid future injuries.

How do you correct posture?

Muscles move bones. So it is a muscle imbalance issue.

Didn’t Greg Oden rehab his muscles after his last knee injury and surgery?

He got stronger, that’s for sure. But not in proper balance. The problem with the conventional approach is people think let’s just get in the weight room as get as strong as we can. Let’s get as fast as we can. Let’s get as flexible as we can. And we think that means he’s rehabbed.

The problem with that approach is you have just strengthened every imbalance in the body making you more prone to injury! The opposite of what the desired result is!

Think: Straighten before you strengthen.

Then strength is a beneficial thing.

Who has used Egoscue? Jack Nicklaus, John Lynch, Junior Seau, Dave Roberts, Trevor Hoffman, Brian Urlacher, Tom Dolan, former Blazer Chris Dudley, and the list goes on.


 

Spinal Stenosis - is surgery the cure?

Thanks to Egoscue Portland for this article:

Spinal Stenosis - is surgery the cure?

Spinal Stenosis. Scary sounding isn’t it? More and more people are getting diagnosed with stenosis every day (read about former Vice President Dick Cheney here). If you are one of those people there are many questions that are running through your head like:

  • What causes stenosis?
  • What treatments are most effective?
  • What choices do I have?
  • Is surgery the best option?

The most common explanation for “what causes stenosis?” is described here by the Mayo Clinic:

“The main cause of spinal degeneration is osteoarthritis, an arthritic condition that affects the cartilage that cushions the ends of bones in your joints. With time, the cartilage begins to deteriorate and its smooth surface becomes rough. If it wears down completely, bone may rub painfully on bone. In an attempt to repair the damage, your body may produce bony growths called bone spurs. When these form on the facet joints in the spine, they narrow the spinal canal.”

They also explain herniated discs, degenerative changes to ligaments, spinal tumors (I can hear the little boy in Kindergarden Cop telling Arnold “it might be a tumor” and Arnold’s sharp reply), and accidents and injuries can all lead to arthritis and degeneration. This website even has a visual map of everything spinal stenosis!

The problem with these “causes” is that they are also symptoms, not the true source of the problem. We have to dig a little deeper. I like to start by asking more questions. Like:

  • If spinal stenosis is caused by osteoarthritis, what causes osteoarthritis?
    • Common answer is age. But that’s not true because than everyone who’s 60 or 70 would have it and they don’t.
    • Genetics is also a popular answer. Again common sense will knock this down because not everyone with the same genetics has osteoarthritis and not everyone with osteoarthritis has the same genes.
    • What else could cause it? Let’s think…
  • I hear people yelling “accidents and injuries!”
    • Oh, good answer, but…and that’s a BIG but…not everyone who’s had the same injuries or who’s been rear-ended develops osteoarthritis.

The answer to “what causes osteoarthritis?” can be found in the Mayo clinics description above:

“With time, the cartilage begins to deteriorate and its smooth surface becomes rough. If it wears down completely…”

The key words being “wears down.” What causes your car tires to wear down? What causes the soles of your shoes to wear down? What causes your brakes pads to wear down? Friction. We all know this. But we don’t often think about friction inside our bodies. Friction comes from movement right? So is the answer not to move? No. We (our spines included) are designed to move – move constantly every day of our lives. The problem isn’t that we are moving, but that we are moving incorrectly. This incorrect movement comes from our posture being compromised when we do move which increases friction in certain joints causing them to “wear down.”

All of us share the same basic design or posture. Since muscles move bones, compromised posture is a muscle problem. Use it or lose it. If we are not reminding our muscles of their job daily, these inactive, atrophied, and compensating muscles will alter the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical curves of our spine and affect the position of our load bearing joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders). Pete Egoscue describes how this happens in his book, Pain Free:

The muscles around the spine don’t all go at once. The rate of atrophy depends on the person’s lifestyle and working conditions, but gradually, as the body gets less and less stimulus from the environment, the magical S (curve of the spine) diminishes, taking with it the spine’s flexibility, load-bearing strength, and shock-absorbing capacity.

This can cause a multitude of problems including: back spasms, herniated discs, facet joint problems, spondylolisthesis, spondylolysis, spondylosis, scoliosis, and spinal stenosis. In Pain Free, Pete Egoscue explains the typical medical approach to stenosis and his take on it:

The standard sugical remedy is to remove the lamina of the vertebrae – basically, one slope of the arch or ridge that runs along the posterior of the spine – enter the canal, and scrape away the calcium.

I have rarely seen a case of stenosis where this procedure was really necessary. Yes, there is calcium in the spinal canal, and there is nerve impingement. But if the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical curves are restored to a functional state, the spinal cord and branching nerve roots usually have enough room to operate without interference.

He continues:

In this and every circumstance that the body confronts, the old architectural slogan is absolutely right: Form follows function. Reintroduce proper design function, and the form – the structure – isn’t a problem. Back pain, no matter what it is called, is most often a symptom of a breakdown of form that has been generated by a loss of function…Whatever the contributing factors, a pain treatment that starts with function will rarely require you go after the body’s form.

Egoscue On Vacation?

Skipping Your Egoscue Menu While On Vacation – Guess Again

Below is a short but very true post from an Egoscue client at Egoscue Palm Beach Gardens.  Shawn Taker is the clinic director at Egoscue PBG.  Shawn, your clients really “get it.”  Thanks for sharing this!


Whoever says you can’t do Egoscue while on vacation is just wrong. If you don’t do your Egoscue menu during vacation, you are just hurting yourself. It only took me a half hour to make sure I got an Egoscue menu in. My girlfriend was either watching the news or jumping in the shower and I was getting ready for the day. So I didn’t hold anyone up on our busy time schedule. And I felt amazing during my vacation.


I can only think of one thing different that I did this time before flying. You guessed it, my Egoscue menu. I think it made my four hour and forty-five minute flight so much better. I am that person that usually just can’t sit still, I move or cross my legs then un-cross them, then move again. This flight I was so comfortable the whole time. Never got fidgety or felt any discomfort in my shoulders or lower back.

Stretch hip muscles with this e-cise

Thanks to Palm Beach Gardens Egoscue Clinic for this e-cise reminder and video:


Standing Quad Stretch

Purpose: This exercise stretches the muscles of the hip and repositions the pelvis


Link to video:


1. Stand in front of and with your back to a block or chair; your feet should be pointing straight ahead and hip width apart
* If needed, stand facing a chair or doorjamb which you can hold onto for support and balance


2. Lift one foot and bend that leg back, placing the top of the foot on the chair/block
* The height of the foot placement dictates the amount of stretch in the thigh muscles


3. Keep your hips and shoulders square to the wall


4. Look down and be sure that your knees remain pointed straight ahead and in line with each other


5. The key is to make sure that the hip of your down leg is not jutting out to the side. You must keep your hips level


6. Now, try to tilt your butt under


7. Hold 1 Minute


8. Switch legs and repeat