Step Up!

I must vent! just took a client through a workout. She has a HUGE bulging disk at L3-4 that was injected 3 weeks ago, symptoms have lessened but she is still full of spasm and pain. I had her do one of my favorite “diagnostic exercises” a step up. While watching her mechanics I noticed that a) the right hip and leg moved perfectly (this is where the pain is) b) the Left foot turns in, Left knee turns in and left low back fires to compensate = bad pattern. So I had her lay on a table and noticed a short right leg. Now, what does this all mean? = cross pattern!

Basically if you have pain on one side of the body and dysfunction on the other side the structures caught in the middle, in this case the spine, get torque and strain all day so something has to give. So I released her right adductor, Left calf and posterior tibialis and both thoracic paraspinals. Followed with a gentile hip flexor stretch and re-test.

Not suprisingly on retest she had almost no pattern dysfunction and no pain, next visit we can begin correcting the imbalance through exercise. In many cases it’s just that simple, so if you suffer from pain and re-injury or exercise and physical therapy do not resolve the issue please find someone near you who can do this stuff. Or buy the ‘Fit Responder’ book, it’s in there to.