Our bodies are amazing but complex systems. Pain, when it makes an appearance can be very worrying and difficulty to understand; what’s happening and why? I think of it as a little like a warning system to tell you that there might be a problem. There might be a problem, not that there is a problem. Ultimately, it is your bodies voice asking for something to change. The big question is what.

Past injury and trauma generally show up in your movement and are, to varying degrees, observable in gait (how you walk). This leads us back to the question of what. As we identify how your body has to “walk round” previous injuries and traumas you can then see how this affects other parts of your system. 

As we understand these compensations we can then aim to give the body a better choice in how to move. This changes joint movements, joint movements become more aligned. As joints become more aligned, the muscles that surround those joints alter their length / tension relationships and we start to move with greater ease, freedom and less pain. For me the key to this is to shine a light on the whole body, not individual segments; not to focus on where it hurts but what compensations are driving the current experience in that area. We do this through a mixture of gait analysis, static, dynamic and neurological assessment.