Often times folks seek out movement professionals to help with their pain. The first thing us professionals do with this information is start asking questions. You may think to yourself "it's the professionals expertise to know how to identify the pain" - and you are not wrong. However, slowing down and taking a second to ask yourself and your body some questions is incredibly valuable.
There are some common situations I see when people come to see me. I want you to evaluate whether you have been in these situations.
1) A pain in the body occurs, and we ignore it. We get filled with fear and do anything to avoid the pain as we live anxiously in our everyday life.
2) The pain happens and we resume movement as normal, feeling as if activating the pain in our intense movement will help move through it.
3) Pain occurs, we google it, and we do whatever the internet tells us to do.
There are plenty of issues within each of these strategies, granted sometimes these strategies serve us in some way.
1) Avoiding the pain usually requires us to change a natural biomechanic (movement) we have. This can promote healing to the tissue but create other issues down the line. On top of that, we are chronically anxious, avoid interacting with our passions, start to breathe shallow, and create fear in our tissue.
2) Simply put, we put more strain on injured tissue which does not promote healing, and strains the tissue further until our bodies once again, unlearns a natural biomechanic. Perhaps less movement is lost, but more injury does occur,
3) We don't trust our innate connection to our body. Our anxiety widens at the proposed options. We may injury ourselves further because we think something is true that doesn't apply to our body.
What I propose to do is educate yourself with this guide and then explore it a bit.
Here is a basic guide to start this:
1) Think of the joints action that causes the pain. It may be more nuanced than this guide, but it is a great place to start. The joints I will cover are - the ankle, the knee, the hip socket, the shoulder, the scapula. I will also share an incredibly general overview of spinal pain.
1a) To explore these movement, feel free to contact me and ask about how to do a CAR (controlled articulated Rotation) for the joint.
2) Once the pain is identified, you will perform isometrics which I will explain after the joint guide.
Ankle - A full circle to explore. Dorsi and Plantar Flexion (toes towards the face and toes away from face) Then eversion/inversion (toes point towards midline and away from midline)
Knee - The knee is a nuanced area. It is influenced but the foot, Pelvis, and core. Know that Flexion/extension (bend and straighten) can affect knee pain. Then the tibia (lower leg bone) rotates in and out - which is the part the is influenced from foot and hip.
Hips - Do the hips hurt when I bring my leg into my body? (Flexion) How about if I bring my leg behind my body? (Extension) Then check if it hurts when you bring it away from center (abduction) or towards center (adduction). Lastly rotation - when I spiral my upper leg bone away from center (external rotation) or spiral it towards center (internal rotation)
All of this is affected by your core and can be affected by if your knee is straight or bent
Shoulder - the shoulder (GH joint) is where the upper arm bone meets the torso. You can bring your arm over-head, you can rotate inwards and outwards, you can bring it out to your side, or you can bring it away from mid-line or across mid-line. Since it has a rotational aspect like the hip, the rotation can be in conjunction with the other actions. Rotation looks like spiraling the hand+upper arm bone in or out.
The scapula - this is a different part of your "shoulder". This is the triangle on our back that brings the shoulder girdle towards the spine (retraction), around the rib-cage towards the front (protraction), towards the ears (elevation), and towards our hips (depression). Revisit your GH joint exploration, were you moving your scapula a lot? It Is important to distinguish between the two.
Spine - The spine is nuanced because it is the center of everything we do. We have different parts of the spine. One can say our spine is facilitated by our core, which is more than just our 6 pack or even the stuff around our rib-cage to hips. It's an entire function.
Low Back (Lumbar) - very basic thought- does sticking the butt out created pain (think a cow pose in yoga. Called "anterior tilting"). Does tucking the butt create pain (think cat pose, "posterior tilting"). Can we control both of these actions and stabilize while we move?
Thoracic, T-spine, Middle - Can we keep our hips stabilized (unmoving) and rotate left and right in the middle of our spines - not bringing our neck into it?
Cervical Spine- Which position causes pain? Looking down (Flexion), Left or Right? (rotation), to the sky (extension)
Once again, there is a lot of nuance to all of the guide above, but once you find your pain, talk to it a bit. What I mean by that is - connect to your core where your pelvic floor is on, your ribcage is exhaled down to your pelvis, and then move this pained joint subtly. Very slowly. Very controlled. Be present. Do not run away or get anxious from the pain. Breathe, and if something feels too vulnerable or dangerous then you stop.
Lastly you will perform isometrics.
An isometric is where you perform an action gently, without movement, for a duration of time. The range of the movement should be the very first point where you feel the pain. Then back off a hair. The movement should be active (so not just passively stretching). It is ideal to use a barrier to press into - a wall, a floor, a doorway, another stabilized limb of yours etc.
For example, you follow the guide above and you have pain at the bottom of your hips when you flex your hips (bend over or hinge). Bending over is a passive movement. Often, you are just lengthening the backside and letting gravity take you. If you hinge, however, you are controlling your backside muscularly into the movement. To perform this isometric, you would hinge as far as when you START to feel the pain. Back off a smidge and hold for about 10-20 seconds while you breathe and relax the nervous system. Then, you could go deeper in range.
You can recreate this position by sitting on your butt with your legs away from your body. Then you would find the appropriate range to where you aren't in too much pain, lift your leg off the ground into a barrier (your hand, let's say). Hold and breathe, and increase range. Lastly, you can lie on your back and bring your straight legs against a wall. Find the appropriate range, Press into the wall for 20 seconds, breathe, and go further in range (closer to the wall) from there. No intense pain is welcomed. Just an exploration.
One more example is your scapula ( shoulder blade ). Perhaps you have pain bringing your shoulder blade towards your spine. Find a wall. Start to bring your arm into the wall behind you as you bring the shoulder blade towards your spine.(you can use your arm as an extension of the shoulder blade since the pain isn't necessarily in that arm joint). You could also lie face down on the ground and lift your arm with your shoulder blade against gravity towards your spine. You can use a barrier, like the bottom of your bed frame, or just fight gravity as long as the range is appropriate. Remember, we are finding the point where the pain starts and just telling the tissue it is safe to perform the action.
Wrapping up this guide, the healing is happening by the tissue doing the movement, and building new tissue and disposing of older damaged tissue. Also by the nervous system desensitizing the pain signals it is sending to the area.
With the intricacies of the body, it is advised to still seek help from a professional like me.
Get in touch with me here:
Or email me at Sam@facilitatedmovement.com
And let's talk about a time we can move together.
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