The cause of injuries has been debated for centuries with the blame often going to:

• bad luck
• old age
• overuse
• genetics
• overtraining
• not wearing supportive shoes
• running or jumping on hard surfaces
• nutritional deficiencies
• poor technique
• not cross training
• incorrect warm-up

In cases not involving blunt trauma, injuries and pain are caused simply by dysfunctional joints. Healthy or functional joints maintain joint centration during movement and return to a neutral starting point immediately after movement.

Joint centration is another way to saying optimal joint alignment. This is the most beneficial or optimal alignment of the joint surfaces to properly support the body and external forces and allow the desired movement. Joint centration allows balanced distribution of loads on the joint surfaces and supporting structures. ​

​Injuries are prevented, or at least minimized, by maintaining healthy joints. How do you know if you have healthy joints? ​

This is false. Stress actually causes many negative health effects including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, headaches, loss of sleep, depressed immune system, muscle pains, and many other undesirable things. Keep practicing your stress deduction techniques! 

I hope you laughed reading this newsletter as I did creating it! Have a wonderful pain free April! 

Almost every new client I talk to will hear me say, "You are bent, not broken." 

Why? Because think of how it changes your thinking. If something is broken, it needs to be fixed, repaired, replaced, or if it can't be fixed, you have to live with the broken thing forever. In contrast, if something is bent, all that has to be done is to bend it back a little. 

When a client contacts me for a free posture evaluation, they almost always have chronic pain that is getting in the way of their life and often have been given some kind of diagnosis: arthritis, stenosis, herniated disc, tendonitis, bursitis, torn ligament, meniscus tear, etc. The client thinks they are broken and the medical system has reinforced this thinking and has often told them the only way to get better is to have surgery to fix the broken piece. The client is feeling hopeless and doomed to a life of pain. 

The problem with this thinking is that often the arthritis, stenosis, or herniated disc isn't the cause of the pain the client is experiencing. The arthritis, stenosis, or herniated disc is a symptom they are experiencing just like the pain is a symptom they are experiencing. 

The question we have to ask is: what is causing the pain and the arthritis, stenosis, or herniated disc? 

The answer to that question is: your posture. Your posture is bent. You are bent not broken. 

And you can bend your posture back into better alignment and when you do your pain will go away and your body can heal itself. That's what I do as a Posture Alignment Therapist - help people bend their bodies back into better alignment. 

When you understand that you are bent and not broken, you believe you can and will get better and that's the key to it all. You must believe. ​

Pete Egoscue rewrote his best-selling book Pain Free and recently released it. Much of the book is rewritten and new and definitely worth checking out. 

"The ideas that Pete Egoscue brings to the world of nonoperative orthopedics are thoughtful, insightful, a bit controversial but undeniably USEFUL! In this book you will find very practical and quite often amazingly effective advice for dealing with joint pains and contractors. I have used many of Pete's thought-processes (and E-cises) in caring for my patients over the years; they work quite often, quite well. This is a short, easy-to-read, and actually pretty interesting book-buy it, read through-sooner or later you're going to need it!" 

- Scott V. Haig, M.D., assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery, Columbia University, author of Orthopedic Emergencies: A Radiographic Atlas 

"We have seen firsthand how Pete Egoscue's method has cured people who suffered with chronic pain for years. He helped transform Sonia from a young mother with debilitating back pain to a strong, confident, active woman. Our entire family and network of friends have relied on The Egoscue Method to help our bodies achieve their original design, thereby freeing us from pain and unleashing our full potential. The same can happen for you. No one knows the body like Pete Egoscue. He is a genius, a marvel, and a movement, and this book can literally and legitimately change our world, one body at a time." 

- Sonia and Paul Tudor Jones

Buy your copy of Pete Egoscue's new Pain Free book here. 

I was featured as an expert in a recent article published on Porch.com talking about tips for improving your posture at home. Below is an excerpt and link the full article:

ePete 2.0 allows your Egoscue therapist to create highly sophisticated personalized ecise menus designed to restore your posture and eliminate your pain allowing you to live a pain free and active life. 

Your Egoscue menus created with ePete 2.0 are viewable on the new Egoscue client iPhone and Android/Google apps. Learn more about the Egoscue client apps here. 

Cats and Dogs is a wonderful ecise that I highly recommend everyone do daily. Cats and Dogs reminds our pelvis and spine to flex and extend and it unlocks our body from the constant flexion many of us spend our days in. Cats and Dogs also restores symmetry and balance to our bodies by reminding both hips, shoulders, and sides of our back to do the same thing. Many of us are one-side dominate which creates rotation and/or elevation of our hips or shoulders, and cats and dogs can help restore balance. I recommend doing at least 10 cats and dogs every morning and evening, but feel free to do them anytime you want. 

I was interviewed for an article about upper back strength by mapmyrun and provided three simple exercises to improve posture and upper back strength and function which will allow you to run more efficiently and help prevent injury. 

Check out the entire article and try the exercises today and notice how it impacts your running. 

Have you ever dealt with pain from bunions, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, or Achilles tendonitis? 

Do your feet get tired or sore by the end of the day? 

Are you dealing with corns, calluses, blisters, or ingrown toenails? 

Do you have balance issues, feel unstable, or frequently sprain your ankles?

These are all very common side effects that come from losing good foot posture and function which can be caused by not-ideal footwear and the loss of foot/toe strength and mobility.