This full body workout designed by Pete Egoscue, author of the Pain Free book series, will help realign your posture, improve your function, increase your mobility, relax your mind, and get you ready for your day. Use these posture exercises as a morning routine before work, a pre-run menu, a post weight training cool down, or anytime you need a pick-me-up! 

Contact us at Oregon Exercise Therapy for personalized Egoscue menus or workouts to relieve pain, restore function, or improve performance. Live, play, be...pain free!

It’s amazing what so called “health experts” will tell people.

“Don’t twist, it’s bad for your back.”

“Keep your abdominals pulled in and tight all the time.”

“Don’t arch your back.”

“Don’t lie on your stomach.”

I was talking with a client, who has an arthritic hip (she’d been told she’s getting closer to a hip replacement), a “natural fusion” of C3-7 along with arthritis in her neck, shoulder pain, numbness down into her arm and hand, knee pain, and pain and bone spurs in her thoracic spine. She has done a lot of massage, chiropractic, and physical therapy and had cortisone shots. Over the years dealing with her pain and seeking treatments she had been told all of the above statements.

You might be saying to yourself, “what’s wrong with that, I’ve been told the same thing by my _______.”

Yes, I believe you...because this problem is widespread and not showing any signs of changing.

“But,” you say, “Isn’t it true? Isn’t twisting bad for your back? Aren’t we supposed to keep our abs tight to protect our back? Most expects would agree with these recommendations.”

No and yes. No they are not true and yes most expects would agree with those statements. And that’s a huge problem….unless you listen to your intuition and trust that inner voice that is telling you not to listen to those recommendations. If you do that, you maintain your freedom and peace of mind. If you ignore your intuition and buy into the limiting thoughts above, you will live in fear of making your condition worse, which ironically will in fact make your condition worse. Let me explain.

The client I talked about earlier had been told all of the above and had believed them and followed the experts advice to a T. And her pain had not gone away, and much of it had become worse and worse until it was “chronic” and “degenerative.” I challenged those limiting beliefs she had adopted and during our session she broke all of them.

She twisted her back…and her pain decreased!

She let her stomach relax…and her pain decreased!

She arched her back…and her pain decreased!

She lied on her stomach…and well, you get the point!

She did everything she had been told not to do, and her pain decreased!

(Why and how? You ask. The reason why she had all the pain and degeneration going on is because her motion had become limited enough that her body, on a daily basis, did not get enough motion to “fill up her tank” as we say. Our bodies are dependent on motion. Motion maintains our health because our muscles, bones, nerves, digestive system, etc. all need movement to work optimally. Use it or lose it. When she stopped doing enough daily motion her muscles weakened, causing changes in joint position, and negatively affecting her joint mechanics. These altered joint mechanics increased wear and tear in joints throughout her body causing joint damage and the pain set in. As “experts” told her to move less, the problem only got worse.)

At the end of her posture therapy session she burst into tears. Tears were running down her smiling face. These tears were from joy, freedom from limitation, a weight coming off her shoulders, and not only hope, but a knowing she could get better. Those are the most beautiful tears.

If you are in pain – especially chronic pain – examine your thoughts, beliefs, and habits surrounding your body and health. See if there are any you’ve adopted from someone else that are not serving you. If you find any, I encourage you to challenge them and see what happens. You never know, you might have the most beautiful tears running down your smiling face too. 


Related Articles:
3 Things You Must Do To Be Pain Free For Life
New Beliefs About Pain
Could a Simple Misunderstanding Really Cause All My Pain?
Pain Free Convictions

That is how Pete Egoscue starts chapter 5 in Pain Free for Women and what you see anytime you are around children. The joy and magic of motion. If you know me, you know I'm always the adult out on the playground playing with the kids, not watching from the sidelines. I love playing tag, doing the monkey bars, climbing the ladder and going down the slide, and interacting in any way with kids because it reminds me of the pure joy of living in the moment, of imaginative play, and of taking our bodies through a full range of motion. 

I want to give you a couple fun and exciting examples of how magical motion is with the purpose of inspiring you to rediscover your childlike love of movement and play, and in doing so watch how your body and life magically transform.

Example 1:

An 8 year old girl was brought into our clinic because she has not been feeling good running lately. She doesn’t “hurt” she says, but she has noticed she is not running normally anymore. Her dad also noticed that her running looked funny and brought her in to see us. I take a look at her and it was easy to see why running isn’t feeling good: her hip is elevated and rotated forward on one side, her torso is rotating the opposite way to counter balance her hips, and her knees and feet are collapsing in, attempting to stabilize her body – but it’s not working. Everything is off. I have her walk across the room several times and then run across the room to see her body in motion. It’s painful to watch. Nothing is moving straight ahead and there’s a noticeable limp as she is avoiding her unstable hip.

What do we do? She is an active 8 year old, constantly in motion. Supine Groin Stretch is never going to work with her – at least not yet. I have to give her something she can feel affect her body right away. Something active...

Bear Crawls!

I ask her if she’s bear crawled before.

“Yeah. Like this?” As she starts across the floor.

“Yes, but get your knees and hips lower and try to keep everything going straight ahead.”

“Ok, is this better?”

“Yes. Now go across the room – back and forth – twice.”

When done, she stands up still breathing hard. I immediately notice her hips are more level and the rotation is almost gone.

“Ok.” I say, “Now walk across the room. What feels different?”

“Whoa! It feels so much better,” she said with a big smile.

Dad’s jaw drops. The simple motion of bear crawls had a magical effect on her body. One minute of movement was enough to remind her body that it is a biped and is designed to be balanced. And it was enough to put a smile back on her face – the joy of motion she was so accustomed to but had lost shortly had returned.

Example 2:

Let’s go to the opposite end of the spectrum. An older woman came into our clinic who had been suffering with a painful degenerative hip for years. She used to be active but had stopped all exercise years ago as her hip had become more and more painful and limiting. She had been dead set on avoiding a hip replacement, but was at the point where she thought there were no other options. She walked with a very noticeable limp and you could see the pain on her face. But there was a window of hope…

We had looked at her posture and talked about what was out of balance and were going through several functional tests to see her body in motion and something jumped out. Even though her hip was very painful she had pretty good range of motion in the joint and this was very evident when I asked her to touch her toes. She put her palms flat to the floor without a problem – something most people 1/2 her age couldn’t dream of doing. This got me thinking that we might be able to give her something that we wouldn’t give most people in her condition. Bear crawls!

We needed something that would teach both sides of her body to work equally while effecting her thoracic flexion and reminding her leg and pelvis how to communicate with each other.

“I want you to do this:” And I got down on the floor and bear crawled across the room and then stood up to see her giving me a look that said “you want me to do what?! Did you forget that I have an arthritic hip that needs replacing?!”

“Try it, you’ll be fine.” (Crossing my fingers behind my back, hoping I was right.)

She got down and slowly starting figuring it out. At first her hip dropped every time she tried to load it, but after ten steps she got smoother and I encouraged her to let her shoulder blades collapse together. By the time she got to the end of the room and turned around to come back she was looking like a natural.

“Stand up and walk around and tell me what’s different,” I said, hoping it would be a “good” different!

I immediately knew it was a good different as her limp was greatly decreased and she looked much more upright in her upper body.

“It feels smoother…easier…almost effortless.” She paused, “And it doesn’t hurt,” she said with the sound of surprise in her voice.

Could 20 steps of a bear crawl fix the bone-on-bone condition in her hip? No. But it can start to correct the faulty movement pattern that created the joint degeneration in the first place. The smile on her face as she wiped a drop of sweat from her temple said it all.

Have you discovered the magic of motion?


Related Articles:
Why Joints Fail and How to Prevent it. 
Supine Groin Stretch
Knee Joint Osteoarthritis
Doctor's Miracle Drug: The Exercise Cure

Lower back pain comes in many forms including back spasms, herniated discs, stenosis, sciatica, spondylolisthesis, and chronic low back tightness and stiffness. The causes of lower back pain can be elusive and the cause of back pain is never found in 85% of patients. Often pain is the result of years of improper movement due to postural misalignments in the body. In this video Pete Egoscue, founder of the Egoscue Method for stopping chronic pain and author of the book Pain Free, assesses one man’s lower back pain and shows how shoulder alignment and a concave curvature of the spine contribute to the issue. He then goes on to demonstrate a few simple posture exercises that can help correct the spinal positioning and restore comfort in the body. Watch and see how the body adjusts instantly to this gentle conditioning.

If you have chronic or episodic back pain it is important to learn what is causing your lower back so you too can fix it. Schedule your FREE postural assessment and consultation where we will evaluate your unique posture and function and determine what is causing your lower back pain and help you create a plan to get back to a pain free and active life. 

Related articles:
Static Back
8 Laws of Physical Health
Pain Free Convictions