Stop living with pain — your body isn’t broken

Let me guess, you’ve got a “back thing”

Or maybe it’s your hips. Shoulders?

When you were younger, you bounced back quickly — tension in your body didn’t last long. But the older you get, the more frequently you feel it and the harder it seems to recover.

Sound familiar?

When it comes to our bodies, we all experience limitations from time to time. Our brain gives us reminders (like aches, tightness, loss of mobility or stability), but we’re used to putting on a brave face and pushing through.

Often we hope our situation will magically improve on its own, or worse — we accept these limitations as the new normal.

In reality, unless you’ve suffered an acute injury — there is no reason you need to live with discomfort or restricted mobility. In most cases, there are simple steps that anyone can take to correct imbalances and make positive change.

Identifying the true cause of your imbalance is an important first step to improving the way your entire body moves. When you focus on these areas of opportunity, small changes can have a big impact.

Finding the root cause

When we experience muscle tension or discomfort in a specific area of the body, it’s natural to assume that that’s where the problem came from — and the only place where we can solve it.

If your back is feeling tight, you get a back massage — right?

While this may provide relief in the short-term, usually it doesn’t address the root cause of the issue. After a while, the tension returns and you’re back where you started.

The truth is — the working parts of your body are all, very literally, connected. Your shoulders, your neck, your ribs, your back, your hips — all of it.

So when one part of your body isn’t functioning well, you may feel the effects somewhere else. If your back is sore but your movement isn’t restricted, that soreness is probably originating elsewhere.

Your brain is smart. When something is out of whack with your body, it takes the path of least resistance to keep you moving with a minimum amount of energy or discomfort.

This means that one area of your body will overcompensate for the problem area to protect you from injury or preserve some functionality.

Cool! That’s helpful, isn’t it?

The problem is that each part of your body is built to perform a specific function really well. When an area starts working overtime to compensate for other areas, it inevitably causes problems. You might start to experience a limited range of motion, weakness, localized aches or general discomfort.

To find a solution that sticks around for the long-haul, you’ve got to figure out where the issue is really coming from.

These days, we spend more time in our seats than ever. Our bodies are made to move, and this sedentary lifestyle can be surprisingly hard on our bodies. Luckily, the solution is often simpler than you’d think.

Here are a 3 common aches and some simple solves that can make a big impact

1. How sitting can make your lower back ache

When you spend a lot of time in your seat, your hip flexors shorten and your forward posture pulls the muscles around your pelvis into an unnatural position. This tension can quickly lead to discomfort and lower back aches.

To make sitting more comfortable in the short-term, and less painful in the long-term, try exercises that open up the front of your hips and stabilize your core. This will take the pressure off your lower back and enable you to stay seated in an upright posture that feels as good as it looks.

2. Get a hold on those achy shoulders

If you’re tippity-tapping on your keyboard all day, chances are your shoulders spend a lot of time shifted forward. This puts a lot of strain on the supporting muscles in your shoulders, as they work overtime trying to keep things stable.

First, focus on light corrective exercises that open up your back and help your shoulders relax in their natural, neutral position. With the tension off your supporting muscles, you can start to stabilize your shoulders in the joint so that they can begin to move freely, the way you want them to.

3. Your hips were made for walkin’

When you spend a lot of time sitting, your hips don’t get to move and extend the way they’re meant to. Your hip flexors shorten and your hips lock up, making them prone to feeling tight or sore.

The best thing you can do for your hips is move ’em. You’ll want to find exercises that help you lengthen your hip flexors and re-introduce some natural rotation in the hip joint. You’ll be shaking those hips like Elvis on stage before you know it.

When we identify the part(s) of your body requiring a shift and correct them, positive results can be immediate. Everyone has these areas of opportunity — little changes that can have a big impact on how the rest of our body functions.

Relieving the stress that was holding everything back will make that particular area feel good, but it will also help the rest of your body move better, too.

As the person on the front lines of your body’s health, there’s a lot you can do on your own to improve how you move, and how you feel. It doesn’t need to be complicated, or take a long time. It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money.

So forget about that “thing” you thought you had (you don’t have a bad back, your back was just doing a job it wasn’t supposed to do).

Your body isn’t broken.

You just need to focus your attention in the right place.

here are my top 3 movements to fix your pain!

1.90:90 Holds

2.Cocked Hip lifts

3.Spinal Reset

Before you leave us…

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