Foot or Heel Pain- What to do if you have it

Dealing with lower calf, heel or bottom of the foot pain?  It's very common for active and non-active people alike.  There are few things more annoying in life than when you wake up in the morning, and the first step you take leads to excruciating sharp pain in your foot (plantar fasciitis or heel spurs).   Consistent long-lasting irritation and stiffness of the heel or calf (achilles tendonosis) isn't much better, either.  If these conditions progress and are left untreated, it will lead to degeneration, more pain and compensation that will chew up other parts of your body.

Luckily, there's something you can do about this.  You'll want to increase the flexibility of your toes and ankles so they can be more of a 'shock absorber' in every single step you take.  AND once you effectively do that, not only will you no longer be in pain, but you'll be able to move more efficiently and increase you're performance whether your a runner, Crossfitter or just a normal person trying to get through your day.

Here's the good stuff:

Manual Therapy

• ART to ankle to increase the flexibility into dorsiflexion

• ART to the achilles and calf

• ART to the plantar fascia

Exercises

• Toe Extension 

• Ankle Mobilizations

I hope that makes a difference for your heel and calf pain.  If your symptoms persist, please contact my office at 561.997.8898 or visit me at www.Mobility-4Life.com

Neck pain that shoots to the shoulder

Have you ever had a pain that starts in your neck but also shoots down to your shoulder, and sometimes even down into your arm or hand?  It could be a number of things including Cervical Spine radiculopathy or thoracic outlet syndrome.

Basically what happens is that the nerves exit from the spinal cord to the side of your neck also pass through behind the collar bone and down to the shoulder and down the arm.  There are spaces in your body for those nerves to bend and stretch as you move your head and shoulder.  However sometimes that space can get closed up.  This happens because of old injuries, poor posture and various other reasons.  The space will be narrowed to the point where it impedes on the space of the nerves and it starts irritating them.  Next what follows is pins and needles, tingling, numbness, pain and sometimes even weakness of your arm.

So....what do we do about this?

Well the goal is to open up the space available to the nerves so they can move un-impeded by the bones and soft tissues of the body.  We can accomplish that in several different ways.  Here are some examples.
Videos

• Active Release Technique to the neck and arm musculature

Exercises
Thoracic Spine Foam Rolling

• Bent over reach-backs

If you are in neck or shoulder pain and are in Boca Raton, FL please call us at 561.997.8898 or visit me at www.Mobility-4Life.com

Can Kettle Bells save your shoulder?

Have you ever seen one of these?

In our clinic we heavily utilize kettle bells in the treatment/rehabilitation of shoulder pain.  We do this for several reasons:

1) It teaches your shoulder how to stabilize as a group.  You have 4 rotators cuff muscles.  When we need control in our shoulder, we need all 4 cuff muscles to work together.  So why have we grown up doing those tired old band exercises for our shoulders?

2) Working your grip helps rehab the shoulder.  A kettle bell naturally utilizes grip strength, otherwise you'd drop the weight.  In the medical field we measure grip strength as an indicator of overall neurological health of your shoulder and arm.  So working your grip is working your shoulders,  especially when you can't raise your arm overhead due to pain.

3)  Kettle bells teach you the best way to use your shoulder.  When you fall out of ideal alignment while holding a kettle bell, your arm automatically starts shaking.  So without thinking about it, it teaches you how to realign your shoulder and minimize the stress on your body.

QUICK TIP

Here's a quick trick I like using to warm up my shoulders before exercise (or as a rehab exercise on it's own).  Pick up the heaviest kettle bell (or dumbell if you don't have one) that you can handle.  Hold the kettle bell by your side (the way it naturally hangs) and rotate your arm left and right as far as it will go in either direction.  This utilizes all of the strategies above to help rehab your shoulder by improving alignment and control of the rotator cuff.  Hold for 30 seconds.

To have you shoulder checked out, please contact me at drscotthoar@gmail.com or dial 561.997.8898.  To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com

Shoulder Pain

Possibly the most common patient I’m getting these days is the shoulder pain patient.  “It hurts every time I reach overhead......” or “ twist my arm back”.  I’ve been joking around with my Crossfit patients that I’m going to write the New England journal of Medicine and propose a new diagnosis called, “Crossfit shoulder”.  It’s that deep pain in the front of your shoulder that shows itself during overhead squats/kipping pullups, etc.  So today I decided to blog about the shoulder.

The shoulder is the most exposed joint in the body.  Why?  It has a better range of motion that any other joint.  Think about it, it moves in 5 different planes!  Really, I think the shoulder is amazing.  It really takes a very specific mechanism of injury to dislocate it, and it has an unbelievable range of motion.  During more cynical times, however, I’ve heard it described as a golf ball on top of a tee that is tilted about 45 degrees.  Because of that, it’s the soft tissues’ (muscles as opposed to bones) job to create stability.  So you need proper muscle function for a truly healthy shoulder.  

Here’s the problem.

Extended exercise, sleeping with your arm over your head, or just poor nutrition can cause decreased oxygen deliverance to the soft tissues of your shoulder, which leads to adhesion (fibrotic buildup) of certain muscles which will cause a shift in the ‘centration’ (the ability to stay centered) of the shoulder joint.  That’s why you feel pinching or tightness in your shoulder muscles around the joint.  

So what do we need to do?

You have a number of options.  Number one- if the shoulder is already in pain, you need intervention.  I recommend a manual therapist (chiropractor/message therapist/physical therapist) that does soft tissue techniques such as Active Release Technique (ART) or Graston technique to restore the elastic properties of the muscle to normalize the ‘centration’ of the shoulder.  

Shoulder Treatment

Number two -  Most people don’t realize the contribution of the thoracic spine (upper back) on shoulder motion.  During an overhead movement like overhead squat, the thoracic spine has a great deal of extension (or backward movement) that allows the shoulders to go back.  Without thoracic extension, all the stress of the overhead movement goes right on that shoulder.  The problem is that people don’t typically address thoracic extension so deficiency is extremely widespread.   There are plenty of manual therapies, correction exercises, stretches that one can learn to address thoracic extension deficiencies.  

Shoulder Exercises 

Upper Back Flexibility

Turkish Get-Ups

If you or someone you know has shoulder pain and would like to avoid surgery, please visit www.Mobility-4Life.com