To Swing or Not To Swing?

With this job I listen to peoples hopes, wants and desires everyday.  One that I hear more than others is how they wish they had a job that helped people or made a difference in the world.  I feel very lucky because I actually have the chance to do that every day.  This past week was a good example of that.

What I do has not always been the easiest to explain.  I don’t really fall into a specific category; massage therapist doesn’t really properly describe what I bring to my clients.  My technique uses multiple modalities with a purpose, not just to get someone out of pain but also to find out where the true problem is coming from.  Over the next few months I will start posting client stories, video testimonials and video blogs about what happens and the types of treatments I do along with the results I achieve.  I hope that this will help better explain what I really do.

The golf pro

A man comes into to my office with almost all hope lost.  John is a golf pro.  Golf is his life, he teaches it, loves to play and hopes to get on the pro circuit one day.  John has had chronic neck and shoulder pain for the past 3 years but six months ago something happened and his condition got much worse.  He has now lost the ability to swing the club.  If he makes one or two swings, he is in excruciating pain for the next six days.  John went to his doctor, who prescribed physical therapy.  For six-month John went to PT 3 times a week, did all the exercises, also did yoga 3 times a week and did not swing a club, per their request.  At the end of the six months the PT informed John could finally swing a club again.  John goes out to the range swings the club and is in excruciating pain again for 6 days.  Six months of PT, time and money spend all to be in the same position he started.  This is when he found me.  John’s hopes were low and confidence that I could make any difference were skeptical at best.

Just by looking at John in my initial consultation I had a pretty good ideas what was causing his pain.  PT was focusing on strengthening his shoulder in an attempt to make it more stable.  The first thing I noticed was his posture.  His head was forward; his hips were forward and he had almost no lumbar curvature. (Curve in the lower back).  I believed that his shoulder pain had very little to do with his shoulder but had more to with a compressed disc in his neck and a pelvis that was not sitting right. John prided himself on his good posture but what I pointed out, was that his good posture was actually not very good at all and was causing most of his pain.

I opened up his lower back, released all the tissue in his neck and opened up the muscles in his chest.  Pretty much unraveling everything in his body from the core.

When I was finished John felt and looked taller.  The range of motion in his neck and shoulders increased by 70%-90% and some of the curvature in his lower back had returned.  His pain had gone from an 8 to a 1.

I spoke with John two days later when he told me the day of the treatment he felt high most of the day and so good he couldn’t believe it.  The day after the treatment he went to hit a bucket of balls for the first time since the flare 6 months ago.  He hit the entire bucket and had no residual pain.  Two weeks later, still no pain, he played a full game against one of his pro buddies and not only had no pain but beat his friend by 5 strokes! John now can again give 100% to his students, play the game he loves and felt like he has a new lease on life.