Massage Therapist Miami FL

By Steven Hefferon, CMT, PTA, CPRS

www.LoseTheBackPain.com

When you spend enough time working with people who are in pain, you hear it all: anger, fear, hope—but mostly frustration. Whether you are going through a treatment program for your back pain with a chiropractor or physical therapist, or trying your own exercise program (Yoga, Pilates, pumping iron at the gym, etc.), if you’re not getting relief, let me share with you a widely known “secret.”

Knowledge Is Power

Our mission is to inspire you through education. We know that people who understand their situation and their condition get better care and faster results, regardless of the type of treatment they are going through. The reason is simple: They have more control.

The problem is that most treatment programs only tell you what to do. You never question and never really understand what you’re doing. You just trust that the person telling you what to do is knowledgeable and has your best interests in mind.

Well, here’s the problem: the person working with you is only doing his job. He likely doesn’t have time to share with you all he knows. More importantly, he may not be willing to take the time to tell you what you need to know to get better and stay healthy.

Be prepared to say good-bye to frustration and hello to hope.

Step One: Stop Everything You Are Doing

Why stop what you are doing? Because if you don’t, the underlying factors of your condition could be making things worse. The only way stretching and exercise will be of benefit to you and your condition is if you understand exactly how your body is out of balance. More specifically, you need to know which muscle groups are tight, which muscle groups are weak, and how those imbalances are affecting your body as a whole.

The goal of any stretching and exercise program for someone with back pain is to bring the body back to a balanced state. That includes making sure that your muscles are in balance with each other and that your bones are positioned as they should be, so that your joints can function with precision.

If a muscle group is too strong or too tight and your bones are pulled out of their proper position, eventually our joints will not work correctly and will suffer increased wear and tear until movement becomes painful. Some people call it getting older; I call it premature aging.

What is most challenging about the back is that of the more than 600 muscles, nearly all of them play some role in the health and proper functioning of the back. In short, the more out of balance your muscles are, the more likely you are to develop a condition that will cause you pain.

Common Stretching Mistakes

If you have back pain and you go to see an expert who tells you that you have tight hamstrings (the muscles in back of your upper legs), he will, of course, tell you to stretch your hamstrings. Well, if this expert fails to take into consideration the other imbalance...