What is Postural Alignment

Chronic Pain and Your Posture

What if the CAUSE of Your Pain is NOT because of Your Age, Your Sport Or Something You’re “Doing Wrong”? The site of the pain is rarely the site of the problem.

Posture Alignment Therapy in The Egoscue Method® teaches you that it’s your POSITION not your CONDITION.

Pain Free Chronic Therapy offers Posture Alginment Therapy based on the works of Pete Egoscue and The Egoscue Method® taught at Egsocue University.

Egoscue University logoPosture Alignment Therapy in The Egoscue® Method is a corrective exercise program based on the works of best-selling author Pete Egoscue and the Egoscue University.

Pain Free Chronic Therapy uses a series of individually tailored corrective exercises to re-introduce the proper and specific demands on the body’s joints and musculo-skeletal system to correct postural deviations and misalignments.

When a client comes to Pain Free Chronic Therapy to address his/her chronic pain it is my job to:

1) educate them about what is happening with their body that is causing them to have pain and

2) give them the necessary tools out of the office to address and coorect that pain by giving coorective exercises to rehabilitate the body back toward proper posture.

Creating an opportunity for healing relieves pain the fastest, and allows you the client to resume a pain free lifestyle.

Posture Alignment Therapy incorporates gentle stretches and easy to do corrective exercises to reposition, strengthen and stretch the body. The aim of Posture Alignment Therapy in The Egoscue® Method is to eliminate the imbalances/deviations of the body and thereby restore muscular balance and skeletal alignment. In order to do so we must identify, implement and practice the Three R’s.

Posture Alignment Therapy in The Egoscue Method® is teaches you how to apply the Three R’s. They are:

• Rediscover the body’s design
• Restore Function
• Return to Health
• How?

Blue Print Design Front ViewPosture Alignment Therapy in the Egoscue® Method works on the basis that the average human body has a fundamental design characteristic, or “blue-print design”.

This can be seen in the following picture that outlines the relationship of the load bearing joints in the front view.

Notice that the ankles, knees, hips and shoulders are designed to line up vertically and horizontally at 90 degree angles. This anatomical neutral postural position is the most efficient and shock absorbing position for the body to function with. The body weight is evenly distributed throughout the spine and load bearing joints. This allows the body to easily and efficiently handle impact from the activities of daily living to imposed demands such as athletics.

When the body deviates from this blueprint design for any reason (past trauma, injury, pregnancy, weight gain/loss, poor mechanics in activity or lack of) muscular compensation begins to occur. If this compensation (muscles, bones and joints performing work they are not designed to do) continues, a deviation of body’s blueprint of form and function occurs. This is the framework of the symptomatic pain cycle.

Good Posture vs. Bad Posture

Let’s examine the difference between a body that is in “blue-print” design posture, balanced in a vertical and horizontal plane, versus one that is not.

Blue-Print Deisgn or Good posture

• Good posture

Dysfunctional and Pain Filled Examples of Poor Posture

• Examples of poor posture

According to the work of Pete Egoscue and The Egoscue Method at Egoscue University, there are 8 Physical Laws of Health. At Pain Free Chronic Therapy we educate our clients on these laws and show you how, any deviation from this fundamental design posture will lead to postural dysfunction(s), compensation(s) and eventually pain and/or injury in the body.

What this means in a nutshell is that any differences between the left and right side of the body, front and back of the body or any combination of imbalances will lead to some form of dysfunction. Common postural changes can include elevated hip or shoulder, rotation of trunk or hip, “knock” knees or bow legs and can occur as a result of lifestyle factors and injury.

As you can see in the image of Poor Posture, deviation(s) at one or more weight bearing load joints can cause muscle, bone and joint compensation both directly at the site, and throughout the entire body. Normal form and function becomes impaired resulting in undue stress and demand.

Work and weightload is transferred to other parts of the body ill-equipped and not designed to do that job. Over time, this dysfunction leads to pre-mature wear and tear on the muscular and skeletal systems.

Thus the cycle of pain and limited mobility begins. When we hurt we move less or change how we move. The deep postural support muscles become latent and atrophy, and the muscles doing all the compensating get stronger and tighter (pulling us out of sid-to-side and front-to-back balance). Now we have a dysfunctional muscular and skeletal system deprived of stimulus and motion. We hurt more so we do less. Pain sets in and the cycle continues.

At Pain Free Chronic Therapy, we evaluate a client’s symptoms in reference to the blueprint of a neutral and pain free posture. Each client’s posture and physical function are evaluated and then cross referenced to pain symptoms. From that analysis, an individualized exercise and stretching program is developed to address your specific postural disparities and dysfunctions.

A posture alignment program is designed to restore normal and pain free function to the client’s body. The exercises and stretches are carefully selected to address each client’s symmetry, balance and vertical load of the spine and load bearing joints designed to restore the correct amount of muscle balance and tension from side-to-side and front-to-back all under neutral postural alignment which vertically aligns all eight of the major load bearing joints.

Posture Aglinment Therapy at Pain Free Chronic Therapy has enormous success in helping people overcome and remove their physical ailments, pains and limitations.

It is a simple yet effective technique that is attractive to many because of the common sense approach to working with the human body. The individual can see and feel the physical changes that take place as a result of their efforts.

Associated with that is an increased feeling of confidence that accompanies the improved health that he or she is responsible for. A major concern of health care today is that of reduced costs and prevention. Posture Alignment Therapy at Pain Free Chronic Therapy requires no special equipment or dependency on anyone other than you. Because we do not treat the symptom, but instead look to restore optimum function to the body, the implications toward prevention are obvious and very serious.

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