Finally a Way to Stop The Devastating Pain Keeping You From Enjoying an Active Lifestyle, Being Athletic and Playing the Sports You Love

Which of these strategies are you trying right now?

1. Rest, Painkillers, Anti-inflammatories, Cortisone, etc. 

“I’ve rested it, avoided the activity that hurts it, I’ve modified my activity”

These never work for long term relief. Because pain isn’t the problem. Rest is good as part of normal recovery but extended rest doesn’t address the injury.

Painkillers don’t address the CAUSE of the problem, they mask the pain so you can continue to harm your body. They never work. 

2. Another round of Rehab, Chiropractic, Body Work or Stem Cell injections.

These are all therapies that aren’t wrong. But if you’ve been there - done that, why do you think these solutions are going to help now? What’s different?

I’m a physical therapist and a big fan of physical therapy but only if it works. Most of these therapies tend to be too short-term or narrow in focus and duration.

Treatment often is by recipe. Your body is broken down into parts but rarely do the therapies integrate you back to sport.

If you have tried these approaches you’ll understand that your issues require a different approach.

3. Ignoring and working through the Pain. “no pain, no gain” That never works.

Athletes are some of the most courageous, fiercest people on Earth.

They can handle so much pain… and because they’ve been programmed this way, athletes keep sacrificing their body for their sport. But this is not sustainable.

I know, I tore my ACL in high school playing football. I was 15. I did not have surgery right away.

I played two more seasons with a torn ACL, often dislocating my knee while playing, damaging my knee each time. But I wanted to play! I was addicted to the sport.

At 55, I’ve got the scars to show for it. And the arthritis.

4. What you currently know and are doing to fix the problem. (the Mortgage Problem)

Einstein famously said “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Do you keep doing the same thing expecting a different result?

You fall back on the things that worked in the past. You work harder, exert more effort, strengthen, stretch, but you still continue the cycle of Re-injury.

Treating your body as something to be subdued, sacrificed for a greater good. This is not sustainable.

You have been mortgaging your body’s health for years. You skip payments so you can meet the demands of family, work and sport.

Knowingly or unknowingly you leverage your health for a greater good. We all do it. It’s what sport and life requires isn’t it?

But the swelling, the pain, and injuries tells you the debt has not been paid.

You suck it up, work harder. Push through. But it’s not working to heal your body.

You must pay the piper some day… and now the time has come.

But here’s the deal. You can pay down the debt, clear it and move into a new way of being. A world that is pain free and enjoyable. A world where the hard work is rewarded with a powerful, energetic and athletic body.

So let’s heed and apply Einstein’s advice. An effective solution requires a new way of thinking.

As an athlete you’ve learned strategies that ignore pain and to work through injury in order to compete.

You’re rewarded by increased playing time, accomplishing our goals and winning.

But the injuries and pain add up.

Instead, we have to begin to stop the cycle of reinjury.

So here is my strategy for stopping the cycle and getting more out of your body and life...

1. Stop the Reinjury (not the activity).

Stop forcing, stop ignoring. Listen to your body.

Pain is not a warning sign, pain means you screwed up.

I’m not talking workout muscle soreness. I’m talking joint pain, swelling, muscle tears, tendonitis.

You need to find positions and movements that heal. Use the pain as a way to understand your body and to start to learn from it not compensate for it.

Find where the pain isn’t and move more today.

By focusing on movements that are pain free you can begin the process of healing without avoiding activity. Learn what movements and positions are part of your cycle of re-injury and correct them for good. 

2. Fix the root cause of the injury (hint: it wasn’t the acute injury).

Finding the root cause involves understanding your structure and your operating system.

Your structure includes bones, joints, muscles, alignment etc.

Your operating system involves your nervous system. This includes your ability to feel, control movement, your understanding, knowledge, expectations and your awareness of your own movement.

To heal and optimize your athletic activity, you need to understand your body differently.

In order to heal you need to fix the root cause. This requires you to look beyond the activity and look at how your body performs any activity from the ground up. 

3. Hire a Professional Guide to Stop The Cycle of Injuries.

It may seem crazy to say but we really don’t understand our bodies.

I’ve worked with thousands of clients over my 33 years as a physical therapist and I am constantly amazed at what we don’t know and can’t even feel in our own bodies.

Much of what our body does is happening unconsciously. We are unaware of what our body does and how it does it. As athletes, we have had the blessing of asking our bodies to do something and it does it. We don’t know how, it just does it.

That is an incredible thing but it’s also the problem. 

You need help to discover what is happening subconsciously and make it conscious. Once aware of it you can participate in correcting it. 

Most exercises assume that you will recruit the correct muscles to do an exercise or stretch.

Bad assumption.

You often develop compensatory patterns because something is weak, stuck or tight. Because this is all taking place subconsciously, you are unaware of it unless it hurts.

You need a guide to gain access to our unconscious movements, then you can correct them.

I realized we all need guides, because in all of my training and years of practice, I was not able to recognize my own body’s compensations.

One example in myself: I was unable to bend over and touch the floor.

What I felt was tightness in my calf and hamstring. Well, stretch them then right? Wrong. What was limiting my bending and touching my toes was a restriction in my ankle I didn’t feel.

Once my ankle motion was corrected, I could bend over and touch my toes. No stretching required.

So all of my knowledge, practice and skill couldn’t see in my own body what a trained guide could help me see. 

Here’s a Typical Case in My Practice...

Through years of clinical practice, I developed a way of helping clients gain access to their own bodies. We call this guided step by step process Prompting.

One of my clients, a physician and avid athlete in his 50’s, had shoulder surgery for torn rotator cuffs on both shoulders. He had gone through rehab but did not regain normal use of his shoulders. He couldn’t see a way out. He couldn’t put on a surgical mask, pick up his arms to brush his hair, let alone play basketball. He couldn’t even do a lay up because he couldn’t rotate and lift his arms.

On a recommendation of a friend, he came to me for help.

When I evaluated him, he was unable to engage the repaired muscles.

He would try harder, which lead to other muscle compensating for the repaired muscles. He had learned over months and even years, to find a way to lift his arms that substituted for weak or torn muscles. He was unaware of this movement pattern. It was just his new “normal”.

So we started with getting him connected to the muscles and movements. We molded the exercises to develop his understanding of his own body so he could adjust the exercise to get the response he desired.

Very quickly we were able to get him to engage the proper muscle, start to strengthen them and coordinate his movement.

We helped him identify and correct old compensatory movements and learn new optimal patterns of movement. It’s a particularly slow and deliberate process but you see steady improvement.

As he learned a new way to exercise, to feel the correct movements, to connect with specific muscles.

He’s regained his movement.

He shared with me that for the first time in years, he subconsciously, reached into the cupboard and grabbed a peanut butter jar, picked it up and put it on the counter. He was shocked. He couldn't raise his arm to touch the cupboard prior to our Prompting sessions and now he could handle a jar without any effort or thought. He was amazed.

By the way, He has regained the ability shoot baskets and do layups.

Are you ready to stop the pain and re-injury cycle?

Our program starts with mapping of your injury and its root causes. We guide you every step of the way so you can understand your injury and help fix it. 

No mysteries.

No white coat issues.

We are just like you.

We need help understanding our bodies as well.

So we don’t hide our process in a diagnosis and send you on your way.

Our job is to teach you what we know from our mapping process. Then you can take advantage of it.

This process of stopping the pain and injury cycle requires two steps:

1. Mapping the Injury and Its Root Causes
2. Using Prompting Technique to Unlock and Correct Those Root Causes

It is almost universal that over time, you develop maladaptive postures and movement patterns.

For example, ankle sprains are a common injury. You probably think that once the pain and swelling are gone, your ankle is healed.

But what you missed could be pre-existing muscle weakness or imbalances, joint restrictions or laxity that predispose you to further injury.

These are root causes that can lead to further ankle injuries, knee problems, hip issues or back pain.

Most of these compensations go unnoticed because they are not painful and subconscious.

You recognize pain, tendonitis, arthritis, tight muscles but what you miss are the subconscious, hidden root causes. Often these root causes are located somewhere else on your body, maybe even the opposite side. Without finding and healing the root cause, the cycle of re-injury continues.

That’s why working harder just doesn't work...

In order to make your hard work pay off, you need to discover your unique faulty postures and movements so you can correct them.

Through Prompting, we function as your professional guide.

We will show you how to use all your hard work and self-discipline to achieve the goals you desire.

PS - Now I want to be clear with you – I don’t know all the answers.

I have been practicing orthopedic and sports physical therapy since 1985. I’ve spent most of my adult life developing a model of health and fitness I’d want for myself. A practice that addresses the whole person. Every aspect of your life. I’ve had clients for 25 years because we understand that life happens. How we respond to it – how we prepare ourselves for the future is key. Each session is customized to you. Every session helps restore countless dreams to those clients willing to learn and work at it. That’s what I want for myself, for my family. It’s what I offer to you.

My wife, Claudia and I have been married 35 years and have six adult children. We have run our own businesses most of that time.

We understand the demands and sacrifices we all make for family, work, sport. We have made a commitment to ourselves, our family, our staff and our clients to live out our mission. We hope you will join us.