Prevention Is Better Than A Cure

I regularly deal with people who have significant injuries. These are not caused by accidents but by long-term poor posture and movement patterns. They manifest themselves into disc herniations, sciatica, shoulder impingements, bad knees, sore necks and painful Achilles tendons that won’t repair – to name just to name a few. These occur from a lack of education or understanding of the natural and optimal body position. How we hold ourselves and move everyday is the key to being pain-free and having healthy tissue, joints and nervous system. Learning the basics of body positioning and how to move and lift efficiently is essential knowledge. Otherwise we are set up for a lifetime of pain and discomfort. Most of the people I treat have rotated pelvises, round shoulders, scoliosis in their spines, tight hips or hamstrings that are tightened through core weakness. These people sit poorly for hours every day and have no idea how to move, bend and lift to protect their bodies. These positions starting in early adolescence. Teenagers stoop if they are taller than their peers, carry heavy school bags on one shoulder and play unilateral sports; these positions follow through for many years to come. The focus on losing weight means people will hammer themselves, running or jumping around in group classes or at boot camps. Some participants are taught Olympic lifting that requires much awareness and skill when they can’t even hold themselves up properly. This is madness. Most people are weak in their stabiliser system and set themselves up for injury when the are doing movements they can’t control. I believe in empowerment and that everyone from housewife to athlete should have daily tools to mobilise and move their bodies to keep joints from locking up like a rusty old car. If a car has a bent chassis that is throwing tension into the wheels and causing them to wear badly it will be fixed. But this is what’s happening with a lot of bodies. Many orthopedic injuries and surgeries could be prevented if people took responsibility to learn the tools they need to sustain their own bodies. Poor body positioning can be easily remedied with the right education and prevent much pain in the future. It is deeply ingrained in people to fix things when they are broken rather than looking at possibility of prevention. But you don’t want to run your body into the ground until it fails before you do something about looking after it.