Looking the perfect workout to match your primal lifestyle? This is it! Restore mobility, functional strength, and postural alignment with this full-body workout that includes inchworms, flutter kicks, core abs, stork walks, squats, pushups, and more! 

If you'd like more workouts like this or personalized workouts to fit your fitness level and goals contact Matt at Oregon Exercise Therapy today. 

Dealing with an injury? No problem! Contact Matt for a free posture, injury, and functional evaluation today!

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Dr. Eric Goodman came up with his ideas that make up Foundation Training as a way to get himself out of chronic lower back pain. The idea is we sit too much and our bodies lose the strength and mobility necessary for normal pain free movement. Dr. Goodman's basic Founder position/exercise focuses on strengthening the posterior chain including the glutes, hamstrings, and spinal erectors while creating hamstring flexibility and as he says "decompressing" the spine. I have used many of the Foundation exercises with clients for over 10 years and this is my favorite short but powerful exercise routine. This routine will lengthen your hip flexors and hamstrings, strengthen your glutes and spinal erector muscles, and teach your how to hip hinge - the key movement necessary to functional and pain free squatting and lifting. When someone can't hip hinge they will excessively flex their lumbar and thoracic spine which is one of the major causes of herniated discs, sciatica, back spasms, and back pain. 

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Pope Francis has apparently been suffering with knee pain and sciatica for quite some time and has had several trips and stumbles because of the pain and instability. Pope Francis has also had to limit his walking and standing because of pain. I want to give Pope Francis and anyone else reading this article some insights into what causes knee pain and sciatica and how to become pain free. ​
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If you have knee pain and go to your doctor, he or she might say your knee pain is caused by: osteoarthritis, a meniscus tear, patellofemoral pain syndrome, ACL tear, or that you might soon need a knee replacement. All these diagnoses explain what is damaged in your knee, but not why the damage occurred. Of course your doctor might have suggested treatments or surgeries, but most of these are aimed at the damage and not the cause of the damage. Epidural steroid injections might help relieve pain in the short term, but they do nothing about the cause of the pain and the FDA has issued warnings about the dangers of getting them. Having an arthroscopic partial meniscectomy might "clean up" the torn meniscus, but studies have shown results are no better than no surgery at all. ​​

Cause or Symptom?

The key to becoming pain free is to find and address the underlying cause of the damage and pain -  not just the symptoms. To find the cause of the pain we need start with a basic understanding of how the human body works:

• Pain is a signal from the body telling us that something is causing-or is going to cause-damage.
• The body breaks down for a specific reason (not merely age, genetics, bad luck, etc). 
• Damage is caused by stress and strain coming in three different forms: 

1. Compression: forces applied in the same line and in the same direction
2. Tension: forces applied in the same line, but in opposite directions.
3. Shear: forces applied in parallel line, but in opposite directions. 

• The human body is designed to have it's parts (bones, muscles, nerves, connective tissues, etc) arranged in a specific alignment relative to each other and gravity. (We call this Design Posture)
• The body works as a unit. 
• Every cell in the body is responding to stimulus 24 hours a day every day of our lives. Changing the stimulus causes changes in cell structure and function all the way to the DNA level. 
• The human body is a living organism and can and will heal itself if given a chance.

Position vs Condition

Knee pain is caused by the body losing postural alignment, which causes faulty movement mechanics and increased stress and strain on tissues of the body leading to damage and pain. An ACL tear is caused by dramatic shearing forces at the knee joint because of misalignment and instability of the knee. Surgery to repair the ACL might sound good, but the ACL can easily and often is re-torn because the postural mis-alignment is never corrected. 

Patellofemoral pain syndrome is from excessive tension on the patellar tendon and ligament. This is caused by postural alignment imbalances up and down the body, especially in the ankle and hip. What is often forgotten is that the body works as a unit and the excessive tension can be because the opposite hip is weak thus increasing the load on the now painful side. 

Osteoarthritis in the knee is caused by compression and shearing on the meniscus over time (often decades). Most people with an arthritic knee who are told they are "bone-on-bone" and need a knee replacement are told or think it's because of age, genetics, or overuse. The patient and the doctor often forget to ask the followup questions and think critically about the osteoarthritis. 

• If the arthritis is because of my age, how old is my other knee?
• How can genetics be to blame if I only have arthritis in one knee?
• If running is to blame for my arthritis, how come every runner doesn't have arthritis?
• Why is the meniscus gone on the inside of my knee and not the outside?

Doctors and patients find it is easy to get caught up in the details of an X-ray or MRI and forget to look at the rest of the body. Looking at someone's overall postural alignment it is usually easy to see why only one knee has pain, or why the damage is on one side of the knee and not the other. 

Sciatica, a painful sensation that started in the lower back and runs down the back of one or both legs, is caused by postural mis-alignment also. The spine is designed to align vertically from the front on top of a level pelvis and below level shoulders. From the side the spine should be in a smooth and slight s-curve. Sciatica is usually caused by either the pinching of the sciatic nerve in the lower back or in the buttocks. The sciatic nerve can be compressed in the lower back by a herniated disc, degenerative disc, stenosis, or spondylolisthesis. All of these are caused by postural imbalances up and down the body including thoracic kyphosis, anterior or posterior pelvic tilt, hip elevation or rotation, and forward head posture. 

The key to alleviating sciatica pain and knee pain is to identify and correct the postural alignment imbalances in the spine, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. If you would like help in figuring out what your posture imbalances are and what you can do to correct them, contact me for a free posture evaluation and consultation, and I'd be happy to help you. 

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A recent study published the the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology found that 1/3 of total knee replacements (TKR) are unnecessary and medically inappropriate while another 22% are questionable. That means only 44% of total knee replacements were appropriate! 

Why are so many total knee replacements (TKR) being performed by doctors in the United States every year?

The human knee joint is both a pretty complicated and a fairly simple joint at the same time. The knee joint is the interaction of 4 bones (femur, tibia, patella, and fibula), 15 muscles, 19 ligaments, menisci, joint capsule, fascia and other connective tissues, blood vessels, nerves, and the environment. That sounds pretty complicated but their collective job is to allow the very simple action of flexion and extension of the tibiofemoral joint (a modified hinge joint) with a little leverage help from the patellofemoral joint (gliding joint) and limited rotation.  The knee joint is the transmission between the powerful engine (the hips) and the wheels (the ankles and feet). 

Knee pain and injuries like meniscus tears, ACL tears, osteoarthritis, patellofemoral pain syndrome, etc are not caused because the transmission (the knee joint) is faulty and only built for a limited number of miles/years, but rather that the engine (hip), transmission (knee), and wheels (ankles/feet) are not communicating and working together as a team. 

A total knee replacement (TKR) does nothing about tuning the engine or aligning the wheels and just throws a new transmission in place. Then we wonder why the new transmission goes out several years later! Let me repeat that: A total knee replacement does nothing about the cause of the knee pain. The body works as a unit, and unless and until we create a good working relationship between all parts of the body, we can't expect the body to work efficiently or effectively. 

I've worked with many clients who:

• had knee pain and were told they need a knee replacement only to come out of surgery still suffering from knee pain - obviously the knee joint wasn't the problem
• had a knee replacement and soon after developed hip pain and ended up with a hip replacement
• several years after getting a joint replacement had the joint "fail" and had to have a revision surgery
• after undergoing knee replacement surgery did not regain their strength, balance, or mobility

All of these are examples of treating the symptom of knee pain or damage and ignoring the underlying cause of the problem. These could all be classified as unnecessary, inappropriate, and unsuccessful surgeries. Every one of these outcomes improved greatly after doing Postural Alignment Therapy to address the entire body and the postural, muscular, and movement imbalances that were responsible for both the original knee pain and subsequent issues. 

If you are looking at getting a knee replacement or have had a knee replacement and are still dealing with pain or limitations, contact me today and I'd be happy to do a free posture evaluation and consultation with you. I will help you understand why you are in pain and how to become pain free.