Pain - Start with the Obvious

Recently, I came across a book from physical therapist Shirley Sahrmann, entitled “Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes.” This book was recommended from a strength and conditioning coach in his newsletter. It’s a great source of information from a therapist with over 40 years of experience who is also a university professor.

In the opening pages, I was quite thrilled with her approach of looking for the obvious causes when dealing with musculoskeletal pain. Specifically, postural alignment and movement patterns. Eliminate the obvious and then look for further causes.

Unless this is your first time reading one of my articles, you know that posture and movement is the focus of my website. According to Sahrmann, “Postural alignment is the basis of movement patterns, thus optimal movement is difficult if alignment is faulty.”

Without proper posture, your movement won’t be as efficient as it could be. Inefficient movement may place unnecessary stress on your joints or muscles, leading to injury or pain. Particularly in repetetive motion (overuse) injuries.

Many of us lead sedentary lifestyles in which we place very little demand on our bodies. This lack of physical strength in our tissues can put us at increased risk for injury when doing simple tasks. Others are called upon to do the same task repeatedly, such as turning to one side of our body and not the other.

I remember being at a seminar where the therapist talked about treating someone like this for back pain. This person was required to turn the same direction over and over throughout her day. Even though she was not lifting anything heavy, after 13 or 14 years of this, she developed an imbalance in her muscles, leading to back pain. Your daily movements or lack of them need to be examined when dealing with pain.

Another quote from Sahrmann,” a major purpose of this book is to describe the changes induced in movement patterns and tissues by everyday activities. The proposed thesis is that correcting these movement patterns and tissue adaptations will not only alleviate mechanical musculoskeletal pain problems, but correction can prevent them.”

So proper movement is very important in dealing with pain. Having efficient, controlled movement is key in reducing musculoskeletal pain, but also in preventing it. Doesn’t it make sense to try and prevent pain and injury in the first place?! We all need to work on our posture and movement for prevention, taking a proactive approach to our health.

As I’ve said before, I learned about posture the hard way - plenty of injuries to my shoulders from lifting weights with bad posture. Also, more than a few muscle strains in my legs from my softball days. Again, poor posture contributed to this.

A while back, I received a call from another massage therapist, who had a question about one of her clients who had shoulder problems. She described some of his problems over the phone and said that he also had some back issues in the past, but it wasn’t bothering him right now. I told her that more than likely, he had some postural issues contributing to his pain.

She found it hard to believe that I might offer some answers without seeing him in person, but I was starting with the obvious - poor posture and movement imbalances. I had a session with him and found that my assumptions were correct. He was an electrician and was placed in positions where he was reaching overhead and applying force at odd angles. His shoulders were slightly rounded forward (like most people in our society) which put more stress on them.

His past low back issues were also postural in nature and contributed to his shoulder problems also. So in addition to the work I did with him, I also showed him some simple posture exercises to help correct this problem.

Hopefully, this further drives home the importance of proper posture and movement in avoiding pain and the need to work towards prevention.

Brian Morgan has been a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) since 1993. He is also a massage therapist with 5 years experience working in rehab settings with people of all ages. For more information, go to brianmorganfitness.com brianmorganfitness.com and sign up for the newsletter “Mobility for Life.”

Tags: cialis, exercises, massage, massage therapist

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Tags: cialis, exercises, massage, massage therapist