Willingness To Change

In essence, a willingness to change is mandatory when seeking any expected new outcome.

But is it mandatory right from the start?

A client once came to us with absolutely no expectation that she could ever get better and vocalized her adversity to any type of exercise. Essentially, she let us know to not expect her to follow an exercise routine for treating her pain at all.

Ok, pressure was on.

Like we discussed previously, we're not proponents of the, "Just do it" approach with clients. We can guarantee that this client would have walked out of our door at the end of the session and we would have never seen her again after that.

Props to her, however. She was willing to discuss her unwillingness to exercise and the reasons behind her pain prognosis.

And as the professionals, it was our job to work with her from her starting point. Wherever that starting point was.

That starting point revolved mostly around pain and body education coupled with some gentle movements to do when getting out of bed to limber up the joints. Nothing that we would normally consider exercise.

From there, it was a building process. As results started to trickle in, no matter how minor, it became apparent to the client that success was based upon her own input. After starting with the most minor of homework requests, we slowly developed a willingness to change.

Today, this client is still on her road to recovery, but feeling much better than she did on day-one and feeling proud that she is adhering to an exercise routine for the first time in her entire life. In fact, she's close to perfect when it comes to sticking to her rehab plan every day!

And so we digress: A willingness to change isn't necessary from the start, but a willingness to discuss it is.

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That First Step

Whether it's pain, diet, or general health, people are constantly seeking solutions for improvement.

Unfortunately, the world is full of trolls spouting the whole, "Just do it!" approach.

Which is know, as a fact, is a flawed philosophy.

It's a sad reality; even among the educated professionals that serve the public are individuals who are telling patients and clients that improvement is a flicked-switch away. There's an implied expectation that an individual can change every required habit in a matter of weeks.

Have you been anywhere outside a gym lately? You would know that it's easier said than done.

And that is just demeaning. The fact that it's easy (or at least routine) for one person to stay healthy does not, at all, speak to another person's lifestyle.

As pain and injury professionals, we want our clients to feel comfortable that visiting us will not result in a guilt-trip on your habits or an expectation that you need to change overnight.

Rather, all we need from you is that first step to come and ask for help. As mindful professionals, it's not our job to judge OR to dictate. We work for you,  so it's not our job to simply write the manual for you and hope you'll follow it. It's our job to assist you with mapping your own game plan with as small of steps as required.

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Is Sitting Really Killing Your Back?

Welcome to the 21st century, where the average hours of sitting per person seem to be on the rise. And with that, we increasingly discuss the role of all of those seated hours on our health.

We've all heard about how sitting is the new smoking, and it makes perfect sense. More sitting automatically means less exercise, which is a clear pathway toward an all manner of health concerns such as cardiac illness and obesity.

But what about the effects of sitting, specifically, on our back pain?

It should be of no surprise that an increase in the number of sitting hours is correlated closely with an increase in back pain.

With that being said, standing desks are the answer, right? Well, unfortunately, standing without the option to sit is also shown to relate to back pain.

What information online usually fails to show us is how other factors, such as frequency of breaks from the static working posture, come into play.

In fact, the larger increase in back pain is shown to occur in prolonged sitters who have fewer interruptions from their positions. Meanwhile, those who regularly moved from their chairs (whether it was for work away from the desk or a deliberate break) were shown to circumvent back pain much more easily.

We found one small study that looked closely at cycling between three different static working postures to show a significant decrease in overall discomfort.

All in all, it should be emphasized that the only bad posture is the one held for too long. Regular breaks from your working position, whether it's sitting or standing, will be the most effective piece of the puzzle to avoid discomfort.

It's time to quit worrying about how we sit and just take those quick moments throughout the day to interrupt the sitting.

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Learning To Move

It's the understanding that your therapist is going to be the expert in teaching you how to exercise.

But there's a step further that's vital when recovering from an injury.

After you learn how to exercise, you must learn how to move.

We wrote before on how exercises in the gym tend to not practically mimic our day-to-day movement habits.

It's one thing to know how to deadlift weight. But it's also necessary to learn how to drop form and allow the body to comfortably and naturally move outside of an exercise setting.

For instance, it's common at our clinic to have to teach even very fit and strong individuals how to comfortably round their spines.

The answer is, "No".

This hesitancy (and sometimes inability) for even healthy individuals to be unable to attain these textbook-IMperfect positions doesn't boil down to either a strength or a flexibility deficit. It's simply a trained response that we've taught our bodies.

Oftentimes, a conditioned fear of movement develops, whether it's appropriate or not. It's regardless of whether we teach it to ourselves or it's a doctor or fitness professional that instilled it; telling the brain that rounding the spine, lifting overhead, or jumping is going to be harmful enough times will result in your body having a poor reaction when those movements are attempted. And it doesn't matter if the raw strength or flexibility to perform those actions is present or not.

So while we therapists are the experts in how to exercise, the right one will also be the expert in how to move. It goes beyond strengthening and stretching muscles; it's about teaching the body how to be tolerant of movement beyond what we see in the weight room.

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