How is it that we have pain occur seemingly out of nowhere, when we’ve done the same activity for years? You may catch yourself saying, “It was fine, and then all of a sudden…” -but this mystery pain isn’t sudden at all.
This common trap gets us when we have been gradually setting ourselves up for an injury by creating imbalance and tightness in the body. Often at work- moving, sitting, or standing the same way, over time, leads to shortening of certain tissues. This shortening creates unnatural movement patterns that your body starts to compensate for. This continues for so long before your body has its ‘last straw’ moment; after enough time, one day it becomes painful… “all of a sudden”.
What can you do about it?
On the positive side, this all means that you can return to the state of balance, before the compensation, by finding the key tissues that created the painful conditions. Restoring the shortened areas will help you recover motion and proper function, and remove the pain at its original source. In other words, don’t get too distracted by the pain itself, or even the location of the symptom. If you discovered a leak in your ceiling, would you only observe the wet floor, or consider inspecting the roof?
Treat the body as the big picture it is. As a whole, tissues throughout your body are a result of the conditions that you let them regularly live in. Focus on restoring (and maintaining) length in your tissues, and you’ll have the best odds of winning all the battles against these types of pain.
