Understanding the Pelvic Floor Muscles and Pelvic Pain What is the pelvic floor? The pelvic floor is a large sheet of skeletal muscle that forms the base of the abdomen. It is made up of the levator ani (subdivided into the puborectalis, pubococcygeus, and iliococcygeus muscles) and the coccygeus muscles, and associated connective tissue. [...]
Recovering From 19 Years of Chronic Pain by Chris Werts I’ve been an athlete all of my life, not at the elite level but perhaps some would say right below that. Growing up, very little emphasis was put on strengthening modalities, and all kids are invincible as you know. Baseball was my jam, but [...]
How Muscular Learning Leads to Pain and Degeneration Chronic pain is invisible, and can be all too easily ignored by people who haven’t experienced it. But if you suffer from chronic pain, you understand the stress, helplessness, depression, and fatigue that accompany it. You might deal with financial hardship as a result of missed [...]
The Benefits of Exploring Micromovements If you practice Clinical Somatics exercises, you know how slow and gentle they are. But if you're in a lot of pain to start with, your nervous system is highly sensitized, or you're dealing with joint inflammation or a structural issue, even the slow, gentle exercises might exacerbate your pain. [...]
If You Have Osteoarthritis, Here's How to Give Your Cartilage the Best Chance to Heal Osteoarthritis is a painful, debilitating condition that affects millions of people around the world and puts a significant drain on our healthcare system. More than 32 million Americans live with osteoarthritis, and the condition affects approximately 9.6% of men [...]
How to Take Care of Your Knees for the Long Haul Knee pain is one of the most common types of chronic pain that people experience, and it's no wonder why—our knees support the weight of our body throughout our entire lives! And while the U.S. population is getting older and more overweight, rates [...]
Figuring out the Cause of Your Chronic Neck Pain Why is neck pain such a pain in the neck to get rid of? First, the muscles in your neck adapt to any postural imbalances you have in the core of your body. If your lumbar or thoracic spine is out of alignment in any [...]
Why Whiplash Turns into Chronic Pain Whiplash is one of the most common acute injuries that results in chronic pain. Since many cases go unreported, we don't know exactly how often whiplash occurs. Some sources estimate that up to 3 million people suffer from whiplash in the U.S. every year. Studies show that at [...]
How to Even out the Imbalances in Your Body I get questions every day from students wanting to know exactly which exercises to do and for how long in order to relieve their particular pain or postural issue. While I know we all love a prescription—myself included—because it gives us confidence that we're doing the [...]
5 Ways Clinical Somatics Will Change the World If you've gotten out of pain with Clinical Somatics, you know how life-changing the exercises are. To not endure pain on a daily basis frees you from stress and suffering—like loss of sleep, mood disorders, and physical degeneration related to the pain. You can also be [...]
The Role of Diet in Chronic Pain In this blog, I usually focus on the muscle and joint pain that's caused by our chronic muscle tension and our habitual posture and movement; that's what Clinical Somatics is all about. However, there's another common cause of chronic pain that many people are not aware of: [...]
The Placebo Effect on Pain Perception and Healing The placebo effect is a general term that describes the physiological effects of believing that we're going to feel better or heal from a condition. The placebo effect has long been discounted in Western medicine—when placebos work, we're just imagining that we're getting better, we're not actually [...]
Unlocking Your Body: Your Personal Process of Releasing Tension and Pain Many people ask me how long it will take them to release their chronic tightness or get out of pain. I wish I could answer this question, but the truth is that everyone's patterns of muscular tension and pain are so unique that [...]
Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: Anatomy, Causes, and Treatment with Clinical Somatics Thoracic outlet syndrome might sound a little scary, but most cases are functional—meaning they can be prevented and often eliminated completely. When tight muscles or poor posture compress the thoracic outlet, you may experience symptoms such as pain and numbness in your shoulder, arm, [...]
The Functional Cause of Sciatica Sciatica often occurs along with back pain, which 80% of Americans will experience at some point in their lives. By the time your doctor diagnoses you with sciatica, the cause may appear to be structural—most commonly, a herniated disc pressing on the root of the sciatic nerve. However, as [...]
Mechanical Back Pain What is mechanical back pain? If you're suffering from back pain, you're not alone--between 50% and 80% of Americans will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives.1 It's estimated that 97% of cases of back pain are mechanical in nature,2 meaning that the pain is a result of [...]
Chronic Muscle Soreness: The Cause and Cure Chronic muscle soreness is, quite literally, a pain to live with. Often, no amount of stretching, massage, heat, ice, or ibuprofen can provide much lasting relief. To understand the cause of chronic muscle soreness, we need to start by examining what's happening inside our muscles when they're actively [...]
Why We're in Pain It's not an understatement to say that we have a health epidemic in our country: an epidemic of lifestyle-related conditions that includes heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and chronic pain. By and large, these conditions can be prevented, alleviated, and often completely eliminated with proper self-care. So why aren't we taking care [...]
