Oregon Exercise Therapy Blog | Egoscue Blog - Oregon Exercise Therapy

Understanding human psychology and chronic pain - part 1

3/6/2018

To truly understand why someone has chronic pain and why they are not enjoying better health, and to help them achieve a pain free active life and enjoy peace of mind, we must understand their psychology along with their physiology. Only addressing someone's physiology and ignoring their psychology is often why people lose 30 pounds only to gain it back 6 months later, or go in and out of episodes of back pain, or have repeated surgeries for chronic pain.

One way to understand our own psychology is to look at why we do what we do. What are the driving forces behind the choices we make and how can we learn to make more positive choices?

E-cise of the Month: Wall Drop

2/26/2018

The Wall Drop is an Egoscue e-cise that uses a Slant Board to create bilaterally symmetrical ankle dorsiflexion which creates a chain reaction throughout the body to improve postural alignment.

How does the Wall Drop affect posture?
The Wall Drop takes advantage of gravity and uses the position your feet are in and the wall to cause reactions and postural changes throughout your body. When you position your feet hip width apart and straight you are creating symmetry and balance in your foot position and this will create a chain reaction up your legs, into your pelvis, up your spine, and affect every joint and muscle in your body.

The Key to Flexibility

1/11/2018

We all want to be flexible. Flexibility is beautiful. Flexibility helps with injury prevention. Flexibility improves performance. People who have flexibility are graceful, fluid, and effortless in their movements.

But what creates flexibility? How can we gain flexibility and maintain flexibility?

What is a successful exercise program?

1/9/2018

In this blog post I'm going to talk about the components of the successful exercise program. When I talk about successful, I'm not talking about helping you lose 15 pounds over a month or two, or helping you drop 2 dress sizes, or getting you in shape for your wedding.

Successful to me is a lot less about short term visual goals and a lot more about long term health and wellness. If you're overweight, losing 15 pounds is great, but if you don't keep the weight off for good, it had little to no real benefit to your life.

Successful exercise programs help you:

10 Things To Make This Your Best Year Yet

1/2/2018

How can you make this your best year yet?

I have 10 things you can do that I believe will help you make this your best year yet.

Happy New Year!

1/1/2018

Related articles/videos:
How to make this year your best year yet
How to keep and achieve your New Year's Resolutions
New Year's Functional Egoscue Workout
Your mindset and becoming pain free

E-cise of the Month: Bear Crawl

12/28/2017

This month I am going to highlight the Bear Crawl. The Bear Crawl is an amazing e-cise that almost everyone can do, but many people do it incorrectly.

When done correctly, the Bear Crawl has many benefits and can improve movement, posture, and performance. When done incorrectly, the Bear Crawl can reinforce bad movement patterns, poor posture, and cause pain and injury.

10 Things That Hijack Your Baby's Physical Development

12/12/2017

Nature designed a beautiful and fool-proof way for newborn infants to develop into strong and capable children and then adults. A newborn human baby goes from completely helpless to walking in the first year of life because of this beautiful process. During the first year of life, this process involves 10 sequential yet overlapping phases of physical development which I discussed here. When this process happens as nature intended it, we get healthy, strong, and happy toddlers.

There are however 10 things that can hijack your baby's physical development which can mean your baby is not as healthy, happy, or strong as they could be. When this development is hijacked, your child might be more susceptible to injury, obesity, and chronic pain throughout life.

Immobilization, braces, and body casts

12/7/2017

With 206 bones, over 300 joints, and over 600 muscles, the human body is designed to move. Movement is what keeps our bones, joints, and muscles healthy. When a joint stops moving things start to break down and get weaker. Bones lose density. Muscles lose strength and size. Cartilage thins. Bad things happen.

Yes, there are times when immobilization is helpful and a good idea. If you break your arm it's a good idea to get a cast to protect your arm as it heals. If you severely sprain your ankle it can be helpful to wear an ankle brace for a week or two. But most immobilization we experience is not that type, but rather body casts that we don't even think about. Anything that limits joint movement is a body cast and will have negative effects on the body.

Here are examples of things that cast or hold the body in a certain position or limit movement:

Move it or lose it!

12/6/2017

We've all heard the saying "move it or lose it" but what do you do with that information and why is it the key to lifelong health?

Many people think move it or lose it means exercise regularly to maintain fitness. And while that is true, our health would benefit if we look at it much more closely. Our body is very specific and particular in how it responds to our environment. The human body is a stimulus response organism. That means your body responds to each and every stimulus it is exposed to. If we want to maintain our health and function, we need to move each and every part of our body through different and varied stimulus on a regular basis in order to maintain that function or not lose it.

To maintain ankle function we might want to take our ankle through the many different motions and demands it is designed to do. This could look like:

WHAT OUR CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY

I really just wanted to express my gratitude for what you do and your great help. And, great help it was!! When one is in constant great pain for as long as I was and so desperate for help...words cannot express what I want to say....how can I thank you enough? You helped change my life.
– Carrie

I feel soooo limber and free in my hip movements and relaxed in my low back. Outstanding and I'm very impressed with the pdf's and the videos, great support to the client. Wonderful job, keep up the great job. – Mike

It is amazing! I've been in pain for 5 years and worked with other therapists and no one has been able to help me. Working with you I am 95% pain free! It feels so good to not have any pain and be able to walk and do things I haven't been able to do for years. Thank you so much! - Joni

Photos used under Creative Commons from mynameisharsha, Jon Grado