Question for the physios and others...Pete Egoscue...

Been doing Foundation, HS, and the Stretch Series for about 3 months now. Last year or so I've been dealing with some minor low back and sit bone pain. Nothing bad yet, but enough that I know something is wrong. I have been pretty active the past 5-6 years, but I think I developed some imbalances after years of sitting and standing in bad positions.

I picked up a couple of Pete Egoscue's books recently and have gone through them. I was wondering what your thoughts were on his methods and exercises? He walks you through a self-diagnosis by taking a picture of yourself in the mirror. The conclusion is that my right shoulder is lower than my left, my right foot everts slightly, and I struggle with anterior pelvic tilt. My head is slightly forward, as well. It was really an enlightening experience, because although I am very "athletic" and active, I am not very mobile and/or flexible. I knew my left shoulder was slightly higher than my right, but always chalked it up to a cycling injury a few years ago where I had a minor separated shoulder. But now this imbalance is really coming into play as I do some of the shoulder extension mobilities (among other things).

His main two "get rid of pain and start getting your body back in alignment" exercises are as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7Vs5Y6gDw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SieHO8seGB0

Anyone have experience with this guy or his clinics? I feel great after doing the exercises, and understand this is a long road away from dysfunction, but am curious how others feel that have experience with this stuff. Thanks in advance.

@Mark Collins @Wesley Tan

I am not an Egoscue certified coach. I discovered Pete Egoscue's work many years ago (maybe 10) and tried his techniques and methods. It worked really great. So I adopted many exercises and use them (to this day) with my tennis player athletes, who are very out of balance (left-right, most often, but also front-back). I think it works well when people stick to it (like with everything?). I do not do the Egoscue exercises regularly anymore, just because I do so many other things (physically) that I plainly don't have time. But there are still a few favorite little exercises that I do almost daily, or here and there. I think you could give it a try, you can only get better. His techniques are very non-intrusive. 

Is this supposed to cause lasting results? Return the body to natural posture? It seems too passive to make a difference, I have no knowledge in the area admittedly.

Self diagnosis it is a solution only if you are an expert in the field. if you do not know about body mechanics, functional anatomy, injuries etc please consult a professional expert.

Perception and awareness of your own body (self diagnosis) is the first step for a change. Then you need to train the new movement patterns under visual control (mirror/video) until they are automized, then add loads for progression to prepare the tissues for what they will be expected to do in your sport/work.

4 hours ago, Petra Dvorak said:

Perception and awareness of your own body (self diagnosis) is the first step for a change. Then you need to train the new movement patterns under visual control (mirror/video) until they are automized, then add loads for progression to prepare the tissues for what they will be expected to do in your sport/work.

Thanks. That's why I'm asking for opinions about these methods specifically. Allesandro's advice to go see a physio is well taken. But I also don't really have the budget to see a physio on an ongoing basis, so I thought I would check out some literature on my own (plus I'm just interested in learning). Further, the knowledge going forward for the rest of life is something that is necessary.

I have never heard of him before. I use to focus alot on onservation until recently I was challenged on a physio course. We were shown that our eyes can see things that are not always there, like an optical illusion. This can easily be proved by looking at someone with a striped shirt. The lines will make the body look different and out of alignment. If you see one shoulder lower than another you could easily think you need to strengthen the upper trap. But what if that side is only down to compensate for another problem elsewhere in the body. So you could easily try to fix the bit that is compensating, which then could make your primary problem worse.

I wish it was as simple as looking in the mirror and correcting what I see.

14 hours ago, Martin Jones said:

Is this supposed to cause lasting results? Return the body to natural posture? It seems too passive to make a difference, I have no knowledge in the area admittedly.

I think it's more along the lines of helping the body settle in and return to a functional state. His books are absolutely clear, though, that the only way to be functional is, well, to move around. The problem I see is that if you're dysfunctional or very imbalanced, the way you move around is exacerbating some issues, or at the very least is not as optimal as if you were moving correctly (e.g. if something is wrong with your running gait, sure, maybe running is better than not running, but much better yet to address the imbalance that causes e.g. your right foot to evert [maybe the hip is doing too much work]).

But I also think "functional" when thinking of it in terms of books like these is very different from "peak performance." I think this stuff is aimed at people with issues that either don't exercise much, think an hour in the gym is going to undo 8 hours of sitting hunched at a desk, or maybe are exercising with large imbalances/dysfunction that is a problem waiting to happen.

I've been at a powerlifting gym for a few years now, and I can't tell you how many times when guys talk about lower back pain that lots of people just shrug and say implicitly "that's the life of a powerlifter." My guess is that long term, almost all of those guys are in trouble. Powerlifting isn't the problem per se, just the (lack of) approach to getting the body ready for it.

3 hours ago, Mark Collins said:

I have never heard of him before. I use to focus alot on onservation until recently I was challenged on a physio course. We were shown that our eyes can see things that are not always there, like an optical illusion. This can easily be proved by looking at someone with a striped shirt. The lines will make the body look different and out of alignment. If you see one shoulder lower than another you could easily think you need to strengthen the upper trap. But what if that side is only down to compensate for another problem elsewhere in the body. So you could easily try to fix the bit that is compensating, which then could make your primary problem worse.

I wish it was as simple as looking in the mirror and correcting what I see.

 

Mark, I think you could like his work. He has several books out, some more simple, some deeper. He actually goes into the detail, why for example the shoulders are out of balance/alignment, and tries to go to the source (often it starts in the hips) and start aligning the whole kinetic chain. His ideas are good, and he seems to be a nice, humble guy. 

17 hours ago, Martin Jones said:

Is this supposed to cause lasting results? Return the body to natural posture? It seems too passive to make a difference, I have no knowledge in the area admittedly.

It is not passive, you do a bunch of different exercises. Different ones for different conditions… you do them every day, for 30–60 minutes. Depends how "messed up" your body is and what you need. When you get into a better alignment, it is still recommended to do the exercises, less often, just to stay in alignment. Like I said before, I am not Egoscue certified, but read all his books long time ago and applied many of the techniques into my life and my athletes' lives too. 

I will check it out. 

Hey guys,

I have heard of Escogues work and took a look into it about 10 years ago. There are other useful methods, concepts of movement training out there like Faldenkrais but in my opinion the GB system is by far the most comprehensive and powerful resource/strategy for creating long term change.

It is so common to have one shoulder slightly lower than the other that I expect to see it in my patients. The right shoulder is almost always lower on inspection. Of course there will be some with the left lower. I'm talking minor amounts here, most people are not even aware until someone else like myself points it out. Another interesting observation is that the left lower rib cage or costal margin tends to be more prominent, the right side less the abdominals attaching on the right tighter. This often is coupled with the right shoulder slightly lower.

As a therapist I am not that interested at all in these minor asymmetries but rather the function of the body and joints. How one's body "sits" when in neutral can be shaped by so many factors over such a long time that it is our normal i.e. right vs left hand dominance. Of course if these become gross then real problems can arise.  

Typical lower back pain is most often caused from too much sitting, compression building in the lower back discs and atrophy in surrounding structures. Slow steady decompression via stretching, mobility exercises and reversal of atrophy via strengthening exercises is the best way.

I will recommend a good chiropractor. For what you described, it sounds like that's the most effective solution. Ask your friends and neighbors for a reference of someone they've actually seen.  Just like every other fields there are good ones and bad ones, and you may have to try two or three. But you should feel relief immediately, there's no take these pills and call me in a week, it either works or it doesn't straight away. And then you'll usually need a few maintenance appointments as your muscles readjust to being in alignment again.

Both my husband and I go to the chiropractor when we mess ourselves up (we both have very physical jobs). Although we go to different ones because we have such different body builds. His chiro is too strong for me and mine is too gentle for him

16 hours ago, Wesley Tan said:

Hey guys,

I have heard of Escogues work and took a look into it about 10 years ago. There are other useful methods, concepts of movement training out there like Faldenkrais but in my opinion the GB system is by far the most comprehensive and powerful resource/strategy for creating long term change.

It is so common to have one shoulder slightly lower than the other that I expect to see it in my patients. The right shoulder is almost always lower on inspection. Of course there will be some with the left lower. I'm talking minor amounts here, most people are not even aware until someone else like myself points it out. Another interesting observation is that the left lower rib cage or costal margin tends to be more prominent, the right side less the abdominals attaching on the right tighter. This often is coupled with the right shoulder slightly lower.

As a therapist I am not that interested at all in these minor asymmetries but rather the function of the body and joints. How one's body "sits" when in neutral can be shaped by so many factors over such a long time that it is our normal i.e. right vs left hand dominance. Of course if these become gross then real problems can arise.  

Typical lower back pain is most often caused from too much sitting, compression building in the lower back discs and atrophy in surrounding structures. Slow steady decompression via stretching, mobility exercises and reversal of atrophy via strengthening exercises is the best way.

Thanks a lot, Wesley, and Mark. I have read conflicting things about posture and symmetry in the body. Some think it's important, some don't as long as it's not egregious. I have also read conflicting studies regarding back pain and how much of it is actually structural (for one example, lots of people are walking around with herniated discs that feel absolutely no pain...same with "bad" posture, etc...and there are of course a bunch of studies showing the power of placebo). I agree with what you say at the end. After having looked at a small amount of evidence my conclusion tends to be that the structural things do matter, but only to a certain extent, and that pain can be very psychological (the subject is fascinating and I was very surprised to learn that it's a very complex deal, pain). I don't train through "injuries" but I do think it's important to move through the pain instead of avoiding it. As soon as we become scared of it it can take over, just like anything else. That may sound very "woo-woo, homeopathic" but it has been true for me. And frankly not over-analyzing it - for the most part I think if we get up and move around a lot more things will take care of themselves.

One thing I learned after fighting a shoulder issue for a long while from the PT is that almost no matter what you do, humans are by nature asymmetric, so trying to obtain perfect visual symmetry CAN cause you to make actual imbalances.  

Ultimately, you can go to a Sports PT and get a full evaluation, they will let you know where your issues lie.

HI Stuart, yes you are right, but we try to fix problems as much as possible.

1 hour ago, Stuart Stegall said:

One thing I learned after fighting a shoulder issue for a long while from the PT is that almost no matter what you do, humans are by nature asymmetric, so trying to obtain perfect visual symmetry CAN cause you to make actual imbalances.  

Ultimately, you can go to a Sports PT and get a full evaluation, they will let you know where your issues lie.

I am thinking that rather than "humans are by nature asymmetric" it is more "humans are by habit asymmetric"…  look at our lives, how we sit, work, use computers, how we stand, drive the car, etc… generally we are more one-side dominant, or we create the dominancy and then over the years we strengthen it even more. Thus we create our asymmetries. 

I love experiments, so a while ago I decided to see how much I can even myself out, and started to do everything the opposite way, I moved my computer mouse, used my left hand in the kitchen instead of my right, in the bathroom too (how hard was that!) and everywhere else. I started to write lefthanded, I started to play tennis left-handed. If I bend down for something certain way, I just did it the mirrored way. It was very interesting (and frustrating) experiment, but I must say that all these little weird things and imbalances evened out. 

Is this the way to live? I don't think everybody would be motivated to do it, because it is quite focus-demanding.To me it was a great learning exeperience that raised my body awareness too.

What I am just saying with way too many words is that we can change our bodies if we change our habits  

@Wesley Tan and @Alessandro Mainente do you recommend someone who has substantial asymmetries to go to a physio and get those sorted out before going too deep into GB training? Or should these asymmetries sort themselves out?

It depends on where the problems are, and what are your goals.I mean that if you want to squat and you need good hips, you need to solve the problem first.