KNEE PAIN
HIP PAIN
FOOT PAIN
ANKLE SPRAIN
BACK PAIN
JAW PAIN
NECK PAIN
SHOULDER PAIN
My philosophy is the body and mind do the best it can WITH the resources available and the capacity to adapt well for a given demand of an activity. Think of it as can your body handle to load you are asking of it? What is the load, intensity, and duration – the qualities of the stressor?
And can your body perform well without consequences or does it have to compensate? Under load, or a stressor, does it just bend? disfigure or malform? or break?

Compensations are due to a limitation, or just can’t meet the demand in some way. This leads to the body and mind to grab resources and other mechanisms from areas, or create a movement pattern to accommodate. The body must adapt. Adapting more and more to the compensations – think of doing a movement poorly for many miles and days and eventually this compensated pattern gets set up as the new default, and yes in walking this is very common. This is sub-par function and performance.
In this sub-par function in which there is a compensation, a negative consequence results. Many are not aware of these compensations at the time. So you keep doing what you are doing, driven by the desire to do the thing you love or do the thing to help you do the thing you love, i.e. training and conditioning. The consequences stack up, leading to dysfunctional patterns – in movement and in the breath. And at some point, if you are not akin to what is happening – the body’s signaling mechanisms to bring attention to an issue…usually when I ask, my clients acknowledge that there were warning signs before the big injury or other breakdowns – there is a breaking-point.
I refer to this breaking point as the threshold. The breach of a healthy system when the body and/or mind can not adapt anymore. My teachers in both the manual therapy and Hatha Yoga fields always said – Signs and Symptoms do not show up until the capacity to adapt has been used up. This is strains, injuries, illness, disease and degenerative processes. I have a visual for this in this article for those that need it.

And there is another part to this – Are you wanting to work with me to help you fix your problem?
OR would you like to work with me to help build and up-level your body and mind’s capacities so problems don’t arise, or don’t occur as often AND if they do you bounce back faster and less compromised than if you were not well off before the injury?
You all know how expensive and time consuming things are these days for trying to get rid of a problem in your body, let alone the price of insurance. The good news is – It’s not expensive to develop and up-level your capacities when you aren’t injured or suffering a condition that has taken something away you love to do in your life.
So fix it or build it? (I thank my brother who is a very successful pool builder, and we often joke about pool builders that use sub-par materials and methods to build a pool, like funny pipe, and the mess that soon occurs when summer pool time enjoyment happens and the pool can’t be filled or maintained because it is broken from not being built well in the first place. And no genetic excuses please – you are not a victim of your parents!)
Healthy functions are foundational and the basis for fitness and performance for what you want and love to do.
Healthy Breathing
Healthy Mobility
Healthy Stability
Healthy Nervous System Dynamic Balance
Healthy Recovery Capacities
Healthy Mental & Emotional Stability

And the beauty is these can be objectively measured so you have an idea of what you need to pay attention to when things just don’t feel right, or you feel not yourself at a given time. And also can be used to measure progress, as well as what to prioritize, for a training and conditioning program. As well these can be used when you are out exploring, or others depend on your performance in a team, and you need to understand your own vitals to know how to proceed, or what to communicate given the state you are in. So important, and does not need to be an obsession of data.
When someone asks what I treat? or How would you treat __________?
My answer is simple. Let’s see what is going on that got you past your breaking point. A sign or a symptom is the broken down part of you, and is often not the problem. Treating the problem by treating the problem will blind you to what lead you down the path of breakdown and re-injury, or repeated strains, illnesses or exaggerated degenerative breakdowns. Here is a scenario everyone can probably grasp – or at least everytime I tell this people nod in understanding.
10 “people” (breathing, joints, muscles, circulation, organs, nervous system, etc.) are tasked with doing a very important job and get it done under a “deadline” set by the head of command (your mind). 5 “people” call in sick. AND the job must continue despite less personnel. The demand picks up greatly as it appears these 5 are not going to be coming back anytime soon. Who are the ones that begin to gripe? scream? shut down from pure exhaustion? You got it…..the 5 left to tasked and overwhelmed to finish the job.
For example, I often see someone struggling with knee pain and have been treated many times for the knee with various modalities and exercises for strengthening the knee etc. and no one addressed the ankle AND the hip (or at least the client doesn’t recall any treatment or program for the whole limb).
I hope you get my point with treating a condition. It requires investigating and assessing, and then interpreting the information collected and determine best solutions forward BASED on what you want to accomplish. Not about the pain. What do you want to accomplish, or do again, when the pain does not limit you anymore?