In my work as a movement and alignment practitioner, I’m seeing more and more younger clients with orthopedic issues that were once a sign of old age. What’s going on?
The simple answer is that compared to how much our great-grandparents moved just 100 years ago, modern life demands very little movement from the human body, and that’s causing physical problems. Our current epidemic of pain and injury leading to orthopedic surgeries and parts replacement has been created almost entirely by our lack of movement. Modern transportation convenience as well as digital entertainment, the internet, the replacement of individual markets with mega-food stores, and online delivery of anything we could possibly want have all disrupted millions of years of human evolution. In the span of just over a century, these innovations have literally put a stop to almost all human movement.
Here’s a list of the most common areas of pain and injury being experienced by people in their 40s:
- Lower back
- Knee
- Hip
- Shoulder
- Neck
The easiest way to understand what I mean when I talk about the importance of “alignment” in the human body is to compare it to a car and what happens when a car is not properly aligned. The car shakes, the tires wear unevenly, and the joints in the suspension wear out more quickly. The exact same thing happens to the human body, and as each passing decade has meant less and less movement, I’ve seen more and more of the “shakes.” As people walk and run unevenly, the bottoms of their shoes are wearing unevenly in the same way that happens with tires, with one side wearing out before the other. As a result, joints are wearing out earlier and earlier in life.
My mom, and maybe yours too, constantly told me to “stand up straight” or “sit up straight.” She was onto something because today it’s extremely rare to see anyone with good posture. Lower back, knee, hip, shoulder, and neck pain are most often created by lack of good movement. It creates poor posture, which creates poor alignment. That’s why we are practitioners who focus on movement and alignment. We are different from anything else out there.
- The first big difference between us and the others is that we teach you to do the work. We don’t practice on you or do it to you: instead, we’re your new partner, dedicated to teaching you how to care for your body for the rest of your life, step-by-step.
- We start at ground zero, helping you rebuild your body from the ground up in the same way that a car restoration shop takes a car down to its frame and rebuilds it piece by piece until it’s restored to its original condition. Olympic and professional athletes go through the exact same process that you will.
- We treat the whole body. As a result, almost all our clients find their back, knee, hip, shoulder, and neck pain and injuries begin to disappear.
- You’ll have the tools and knowledge you need to treat and take care of most of your pain and injury yourself, both now and if they arise in the future.
- We’re about more than the fundamentals of movement and alignment. Our clients are seeking much more from their bodies and want to experience more from this world. We can help you create a life where you can do and experience things you never imagined.
Think of movement360 as preventative maintenance. You’ll stop your current pain and injury and keep your body in peak condition for decades, even into your 80s and 90s.
