Samantha came in suffering from complications stemming from a fractured pelvis. After 2 years of conventional training and physiotherapy with no progress in her injury rehab she discovered Functional Patterns Surf Coast and hasn’t looked back since. Rather than taking the traditional route of trying to treat her pain points specifically we took a holistic approach of assessing her overall posture and movement patterns.
Before and After
When Samantha started working with us she had a number of issues including osteitis pubis, chronic lower back pain, pain throughout her right leg and shoulders and flare ups that would leave her couch bound for days at a time. The first thing we did was take a look at her posture and walking (gait), what we found was a general lack of global integration in her body, it was as if her muscles had forgotten how to work together and as such she seemed to rely on shifting her hips forward and locking out her knees to find a sense of stability.
These pictures were taken roughly 2 years apart and show the long term improvements in her posture, Samantha was seeing us once weekly and self admittedly did not practice much at home at all. As you can see she is no longer stuck with her pelvis shifted forward and has learned to integrate her legs to maintain a nice upright and neutral posture absent of locking out her knees. Her core is much more toned and integrated and of course she no longer suffers from pain or any of the issues that she originally came in with. It’s important to note that although she has been training with us now for 3 years she was out of chronic pain within 3 months and back walking again unencumbered. As a result she was able to start losing weight as her body was able to move pain free.
The Outcome
Samantha was able to resolve her problems by focusing on correcting her posture and gait, not by focusing on her specific pain points and attempting to treat them as isolated issues. By zooming out and seeing the whole body move we are able to identify deficiencies and work to correct them.
We take the same approach with every client, although their issues may vary widely the premise remains the same, assess posture and gait and aim to correct those functions first.
If you are struggling with osteitis pubis or other chronic issues and previous treatments have failed to provide lasting relief, a posture and movement assessment with us may help to shed light on why the problem persists.
