Functional Rehabilitation

Sometimes the mechanism of someone’s injury is very straightforward. Never having back pain in the past, you lift a heavy air-conditioner and sprain your back. In that case, treatment is aimed at minimizing the acute pain and inflammation at the site of your pain. More frequently however, the actual cause of someone’s back or neck pain is not that simple.

It’s very common for the source of your pain not to be located at the site of your pain. Chronic or recurring painful conditions are frequently caused by tightness or weakness in another part of the body. When one part of the body is tight or weak, a movement compensation develops that puts more stress on your back or neck than those parts of your body can handle. Over time that can look like neck pain, or headaches or lower back pain, but to really get to the cause, you have to look elsewhere in your “kinetic chain.”

For example…

Whether it’s core strengthening, low back stability training, or strengthening of your deep neck muscles, most patients in my office are prescribed corrective exercises to help them heal faster and more fully.

I find that the best way to assess what the most effective exercises are for your particular condition is to do a very careful movement assessment when we do our initial exam. We have to find out what’s weak or tight or out of balance for you. Everyone is different. There are no cookie cutter recipes for exercise rehab.

I always try to give you as few exercises to do at home as possible. Overwhelm will just get in the way of you doing what you need to do.

You won’t be asked to remember a bunch of exercises that we just go over in the office.

I use an online library of exercise videos to prescribe corrective exercises to patients. You’ll receive a link in an email, set up a password, and then have access to short videos accompanied by written descriptions for all of your specific exercises. You won’t have to remember detail from a conversation in the office and I won’t give you old handouts to sit in a pile in your house.

As you progress or if your goals change, we’ll modify your set of exercises and we’ll use this as our ongoing collection of rehab exercises.

Tight Hips Can Cause Lower Back Pain

If your hips are tight, they don’t go through their normal range of motion as you walk, run or exercise. Over time the structures in your lumbar spine compensate as they take up the slack of that limited motion, and this can contribute to chronic lower back pain.

Mid Back Stiffness Can Provoke Neck Pain.

When the muscles and joints in your mid back are stiff, that strain gets transferred to your neck as it compensates for the lack of mid-back movement. Over time this can cause neck pain and headaches.

Poor Posture Can Cause Upper Back and Neck

Many people, usually from stooped-over computer/device postures, develop weakness in the muscles that control their shoulder blades. This creates a compensation where your upper trapezius becomes overloaded and tight (and achy!)

Foot Weakness Can Cause Hip Pain

Weakness in the muscles of your feet can change the way your hip functions. If your hip is turning in too much with each step you can develop bursitis or even ITB syndrome over time.

When someone comes into my office we do a deep exam to see how your whole body moves. We look at mobility, gait, motor control, and strength in an effort to uncover the “upstream cause” of your painful condition. We use that information to develop a treatment plan that addresses all of those issues, not just the area of pain. I’ll treat your back or neck but we’ll also address those other areas of dysfunction in your body.

And in addition to the treatment that we do in the office, I’ll put together a program of corrective exercises for you to do at home that also address the various issues that we’re addressing in the office.

All of this helps us to correct the underlying movement issues that are causing your pain, and over time helps you move through your life with more strength and ease.