Injury Recovery
How to Reach to Relieve Neck and Shoulder Pain
As humans we are often reaching directly in front of our bodies to do tasks with our hands. For instance, we type and use a mouse on our computers; chop, cook and clean in the kitchen; text on our phones; eat our meals; and much, much more. But have you ever...
Beat Your Pain Using the Biopsychosocial Model
Pain is: “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.” This updated definition of pain was provided by The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)...
Are you injury-prone?
Some people seem to get hurt--a lot. Why? In general, these people blame their injuries on being clumsy, rushing, not paying attention, or just bad luck. As an example, I recently received this email from a client: “Last weekend I fell on my left hip on Saturday while...
Conquer Your Fear of Pain with Movement
Kinesiophobia: “the avoidance of activity because you fear it will cause pain.” --Norman J. Marcus, MD While I was talking with one of my clients who had suffered from back pain for over four years, he realized that only when distracted did he not have pain with...
What does it mean to be a Pain Free Athlete?
You are an athlete! An athlete is anyone who desires to be active and challenge themselves. In my definition, competition and organized sports are not required to be an athlete. However, in the era of Covid-19, there aren’t many, if any, events to participate in...
5 Steps to Fix a Knot Under Your Shoulder Blade
Have you ever had a knot under your shoulder blade? One that hindered your movements? You are not alone. Most painful knots under the shoulder blade (scapulae bones) are due to tension buildup within the soft tissues. In this blog, I address how to break up and...
Determined to Finish: Our Experience of The Pioneer MTB Race
Find Stunning * Find Character * Find Welcome This is the promise of The Pioneer, a six-day mountain bike stage race. Without doubt, our character was tested and strengthened during this epic event that was held December 1-6, 2019. The stunning views were often...
How to Fix Elbow Tendonitis
Tennis Elbow, Climber’s Elbow, Golfer’s Elbow—these are all elbow tendonitis injuries. However, despite what you might think, the elbow is often not the problem . . . What is Epicondylitis? Epicondylitis is simply the technical term for Tennis Elbow, Climber’s...
Foot and Ankle Injuries Often Lead to Chronic Pain
Have you ever sprained your ankle? It is a common injury, happening 97 times a minute, 2,328 times a day and 850,000 times a year. Actually, you have a 30% chance of spraining your ankle this year! (https://www.rightdiagnosis.com/a/ankle_sprain/stats.htm)...
Recover While You Run
When we think of running and recovery, we generally visualize stretching, massage, rolling, or other post-workout activities. These are all excellent activities, but they only happen after the running workout is complete. Instead of recovering only after you've...
Stretching Your Glutes Isn’t Enough
Recently, during a hard week of training—including climbing intervals on the bike and heavy lifting in the gym—I woke up with intense tightness in my left glute. Previously, I had overworked my my right glute, which made it tighter. Now it was the left. I saw this as...
Posture Therapy: A Bodyworker’s Perspective
Last summer, Elizabeth Lamoureux was diagnosed with Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) in her right hip. FAI creates abnormal contact and wear in the hip joint, between the ball—top of the femur (thigh bone)—and the socket—acetabulum (depression in the pelvic bone)....
Stay Aligned to Beat Back Pain: 5 Exercises
In my last blog, The Best Position to Relieve Back Pain, you discovered that many instances of back pain are due to misalignments in the pelvis and spine. However, as the blog notes, you can correct these imbalances with the static back and constructive rest...
The Best Position to Relieve Back Pain
As you might know, back pain is often the result of excess tension in the muscles that run down either side of the spine, a twisted pelvis, and tight hip flexors. Relieving this imbalance can be as easy as lying down on your back in an aligned position and breathing....
Fix Your Running Blisters with Hip Alignment Exercises: Gadrie’s Story
Guest Blog: Gadrie Edmunds I started running regularly when I was 19 or 20 to try and lose weight and get in shape. Not knowing any better, I started off running in aerobics shoes. I don’t know if the shoes contributed to it, or if I just took a bad step one day, but...
Meet Jessica!
I believe we are designed to move and play throughout our entire lives. I don’t buy into the idea that we should slow down with age, or that pain, injury and physical restrictions are unavoidable aspects of growing older. So, here’s my philosophy. Our mental mindset, combined with the physical position and condition of the body that we bring into any activity (from walking to skiing to everything in between), determines our chance of hurting when we move. If we have a positive mindset, and if we have proper positioning and move with correct body biomechanics, all activities should be possible.
This is the goal I have for everyone: to overcome pain and limitations so you can Stay in the Game for Life!
Visit The Pain Free Athlete website for additional resources and opportunities.
